Vietnam tourism slumps
July 3, 2009 by TTRweekly Staff
Filed under News
Vietnam reports drops in arrivals in first five months of year.
Vietnam National Administration of Tourism reported, last week, international visitors to Vietnam for the first five months of this year dropped 18.8%.
Arrivals in May stood at 292,842, or a 20% below May 2008. Arrivals over the first five months reached 1,614,455, or 18.8% lower than the same period in 2008.
Tourism related arrivals alone, for the first five months, dropped 22% to 986,350 arrivals, while business trips dropped 12.9% to 285,383.
China ranked top with 189,108 arrivals, down 38.3%. The US market dropped just 1.2% to 185,776 followed by South Korea with 171,721 arrivals (-22%), Japan 156,865 (-8.2%) and Taiwan 117,517 (16.5%). Thailand supplied 75,863 arrivals, down 19%.
According to the VNAT, positive supply markets were Malaysia, with 72,074 arrivals (+0.9%) and Canada with 42,420 arrivals (+4.2%).
VNAT said it would still push ahead with a programme of discount tours named “Impressive Vietnam.” It pledged support for travel agents who needed to attend fairs, workshops and tourism events overseas.
It will also launch campaigns in major markets such as China, Japan, France, Australia, New Zealand and other members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.
The biggest hindrance to visiting wonderful VietNam is the necessity to get a visa before even buying a ticket!
Cambodia, Laos and Thailand have visa-on-arrival and Cambodia, which is way behind VietNam technologically, even has on-line visa facilities.
Another problem is that on-line hotel reservation systems are untrustworthy as the hotel descriptions are unverified and the reservation methodology is flawed.
VNAT should crack down on these web sites and regulate them to ensure they offer reliable and trustworthy services.
Likewise, there are only two reliable long-distance bus carriers supplemented by fly-by-night ‘OpenTour’ buses whose passengers killed/injured rate is horrendous.
Notwithstanding all the shortcomings, few countries offer such rewarding experiences as does VietNam. Come on over!