Vietnam Travel and Tourism Summit 2019 held in Hanoi in mid-December has created a forum for tourism specialists, businesses and administrators to find out how to create a developmental breakthrough for the industry in the future.
In the eleven months of 2019, Vietnam had nearly 16.3 million foreign tourists, up 15.4% from the same period last year. The rate was relatively high compared with a 6% growth in the number of foreign tourists in Asia-Pacific and a 5% increase in Southeast Asia. It is estimated that Vietnam will have 18 million foreign tourists in 2019, earning a total revenue of 720 trillion dong (over 313 million US dollars).
Yet, the competitiveness of Vietnam’s tourism remains low with many of the country’s tourism rankings reporting drops or still being at low levels. Many problems and bottlenecks of the tourism industry have not been addressed properly. Tourism promotion remains limited due to a lack of resources and operation mechanisms and the absence of overseas tourism promotion offices. The tourism development support fund was established but has not started yet. The airport infrastructure is overloaded, failing to meet the increasing tourist demands. The visa policy is still limited as compared regional countries such as Thailand, Indonesia and Malaysia.