The State authorities and the private block have already set up close combination but Vietnam needs to do many other things to bring the tourism to one of spearhead industries, said Joe Mannix, who is the head of the Tourism Group at the mid-term Vietnam Business Forum 2007.
The tourism is playing an important role to the Vietnamese economic development. The tourism export ranks fifth among the top five exporters of Vietnam, with export revenues of US$3.6 billion in 2006. Moreover, it creates direct jobs for 230,000 people and indirect jobs for 600,000 people.
Therefore, the harmonious tourism development is a vital issue, which not only demands the concern of the state but also the participation of the entire society. At the recently concluded Vietnam Business Forum, Mr Joe Mannix said the meetings between the private economic block and the Vietnam National Administration of Tourism (VNAT) mentioned many key points, including the perfection of master plan for the tourism industry - a plan that reflects the comprehensive cooperation in marketing, advertising, educational, environmental and infrastructural aspects.
Solutions
Definitely, when the cooperation and association between the state and private sectors are consolidated, there are more works to be resolved. The first issue of concern is that the growth rate of the tourism industry outstrips the current and future infrastructure system expansion. Moreover, several actualities of the sector are contradictory to international standards as well as WTO regulations.
Meanwhile, many initiatives of basically improving hotel, rest house and transport infrastructure systems are slowly carried out. Sometimes, the government approval is still bureaucratic.
The outcome of the slowness in the infrastructure planning is the double disadvantage the hotel sector is encountering. The insufficient supply and excessive demand for rooms in Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi leads the hike of stay fees.
On the business basis, it is understandable but the problem is several hotels break booking contracts with travel firms to raise the stay fares.
Mr Joe Mannix stressed this situation needs putting to an end because it goes against the good reality and sullies the fame and prestige of the tourism sector in general. In the long term, the Vietnamese tourism sector will gradually lose business opportunities because potential visitors will be hesitant in choosing Vietnam where they feel of uncertainty in advertisement and reality. Therefore, Vietnam needs to have a solution for both the hotel sector and travel firms.
The final issue is the education. The quality and quantity of tour guides are insufficient. When the Tourism Law provides detail measures to supervise tour guiding activities, these measures are, however, not synchronously applied. These are several in thousands of matters affecting the quality of training human resources for the tourism sector.
Thu Huyen
Vietnamese
