Vietnam International Visit Counts on the Rise

3.4 million is the number of foreign tourists travelling to Vietnam in the first seven months of 2011, according to statistics collected by Vietnam General Statistics Office. This is good news for the industry because it represents 17.3% increase in the number of inbound travelers, compared to the same period of 2010.

Though 17.3% is an impressive number, it does not mean that all sectors of tourism share the increasing pace. During these seven months, international tourists who arrive in Vietnam for leisure or visiting family and friends increase significantly, with more then two millions of leisure tourists (11.3% higher than the same period of 2010) and nearly 600,000 travelers visiting family and friends (68.7% higher then the same period of 2010).

Meanwhile, the number of MICE travelers (traveling for Meeting, Incentive, Convention, or Event-Exhibition) continues to decrease for the period. The fall of MICE tourism is the outcome of many reasons including lack of hotels that have enough facilities required for MICE, unprofessional organizers of event or convention, current MICE tours provided by domestic travel companies not offering interesting entertainment activities, lack of MICE tourism promotion. Hence, fostering MICE tourism requires the collaboration of the government, local authority and tourism suppliers like hotels and tourism companies.

Hotels that target MICE traveler need to raise the standard of facility and ensure specific equipments and services for their guests. Tourism companies could also create more interesting MICE tours which offer delegates a balance between work and entertainment activities through charity gala dinner, small trip to cultural and historical attritions, or other free outgoing activities like sport or shopping in local market.

Besides, government should pay more attention to MICE tourism, giving positive policies for MICE tourism development; and Vietnam National Administration of Tourism needs to launch effective promotion campaigns for MICE tourism only.

It should be noted that 17.3% is much contributed by Asian tourists like Cambodian, Chinese or Malaysian rather than Western ones. This proves Vietnam's special appeal to budget tourists and the country's advantage lies majorly in the close geographical location, and natural scenery instead of luxurious accommodation or premium tourism services.

Therefore, to attract more higher-income Western travelers, Vietnam tourism providers should upgrade their facility and service, conduct promotion campaign to Western market, and launch specific tour packages for Western visitors only. Since July, August and September is the peak season of Vietnam domestic tourism; there lies hope that the trend will continue to drive onward.