Visa Inc. and the Pacific Asia Travel Association (PATA) have ranked Vietnam in the list of top-ten markets for travel and tourism employment in the region in their joint survey released recently.
“The top two global markets for travel and tourism employment are China and India with Japan, Indonesia, Vietnam and Thailand all in the top 10,” said Greg Duffel, president and chief executive officer of PATA.
The travel and tourism industry generates 74.5 million jobs in China and 30.5 million jobs in India, according to the World Travel and Tourism Authority.
The survey does not clarify the number of employees working in the industry in Vietnam. However the Tourism Working Group under the Vietnam Business Forum disclosed this US$4.5-billion industry employed one out of every nine people in the country.
The travel and tourism industry was a major employer in nearly every destination in Asia Pacific, Duffel stressed in the statement about the Visa and PATA Asia Pacific travel intentions survey entitled “Determining Travel Preferences in 2009 and Beyond.”
“While the global economic situation will impact tourism, it is unlikely to bring travel to a standstill,” said Truong Minh Ha, Visa country manager for Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos. “What our survey has shown is that travelers will be more creative in their selection of destinations.”
For the period from now till 2010, the survey shows Australia, Japan and Hong Kong as the top three destinations in Asia Pacific for travelers. This region is also named as the number one for those intending to travel overseas in the next two years.
Ha of Visa said the finding reinforced the vital role of the travel and tourism industry in the regional economy. She furthered despite the economic slowdown, last year saw the regional industry grow 5.76 per cent, which is nearly double the world average rate, and that the industry accounted for more than 5.5 per cent of the total gross domestic product in the region.
Duffel of PATA urged the Asia Pacific to have a constant supply of trained, ambitious service employees to keep up with “the impressive year-on-year growth in the region.” (VietNamNet)
Vietnamese
