The nation’s tourism industry is going to focus on developing strong tourism brands in the next decade, particularly those targeted at foreign markets.

Nguyen Van Tuan, head of the Vietnam National Administration of Tourism (VNAT), said developing strong tourism brands is one of the new missions in a draft master tourism development plan to 2020, with a view to 2030.

The country’s tourism industry has traditionally centered more on activities such as building products and developing tourism areas.

“We want to develop strong brands to raise the competitiveness of service providers and the sector as a whole in the next development stage,” he told the Daily.

He said many companies in the tourism industry are small and medium with small brands. This doesn’t help these companies when doing business with foreign established partners. However, some companies such as Saigontourist Holding Company and Vietravel are developing into big brands in this country and abroad.

“These companies are doing branding activities by themselves. In the new stage, we will need to give support to such activities for the benefit of the whole sector,” Tuan said.

He said the agency would create more chances for the companies to promote their brands in foreign countries. “First up, the company will have opportunities to promote their image via programs to promote the national brand,” Tuan said.

He said the agency will complete the master plan after collecting ideas from experts and entrepreneurs.

Under the draft plan, the country’s tourism industry plans to woo 10.3 million foreign visitors and 47.5 million domestic travelers with revenue of US$19 billion by 2020.

Last year, the tourism sector served 5.05 million foreign visitors, and 28 million domestic tourists with total revenue of around US$5 billion.

Tuan said the industry still sees sea tourism as a strong advantage and it has big plans for the five main sea tourism areas across the country. They are Hạ Long (Quang Ninh Province)-Cat Ba (Haiphong City), Lang Co-Son Tra-Hoi An, Nha Trang-Cam Ranh, Phan Thiet- Mui Ne, and Phu Quoc.

Source: SGT