“Vietnam Tourism Prize 2008”: An Honour for Leading Enterprises

The Vietnam Tourism Administration (VNAT) will officially announce the list of 48 leading restaurants, travel companies, tourist transport companies and tourism trading sites on July 2 in the Hanoi Opera House. Vietnam Business Forum reporter has had an interview with Mr Nguyen Phu Duc, Chairman of the Vietnam Tourism Association on the selection and the awarding of the Vietnam Tourism Prize 2008.

 

The scope of the prize this year is larger than that of the previous years as it allows selecting 10 three-star leading hotels, ten four-start leading hotels, and ten five-star leading hotels instead of selecting only 10 leading hotels of different levels last year. The new concept is that we use star level as a basis and do comparison between hotels of the same level not of different levels. The prize for tourism companies this year is also expanded by selecting 10 leading international travel companies and five leading internal travel companies instead of selecting only international travel companies last year. We select only five internal travel companies as many companies have not yet met new standards.

 

The standards for quality of star level are still based on the standards of the previous years but are improved to ensure accurate assessments on two aspects of legal framework and business operations. In terms of legal framework, selected companies must be prestigious and a good law obeyer. Regarding business operations, the total arrivals, revenue, profit, tax payment, and staff incomes are the basis for the selection.

 

The quality of rewarded companies has been gradually improved in recent years. The honoured are enterprises that have outstanding business performances. Notably, three international travel companies and two hotels have been selected to the top ten for 10 consecutive years.

This year, the association also plans to honour one tourist transport company and two tourism site trading companies.

 

In addition, the EU-funded Vietnam Human Resource Project has been operating effectively for four years, which has built a lot of good standards and organised effective training courses. On this occasion, the project will also grant certificates and honour a five-start hotel, a four-star hotel and a three-star hotel, two international travel companies and some institutions that meet the EU standards.

 

Laws stipulate tourism business activities including travel, hotel, tourist transport, and trading of tourism sites. Therefore, tourism transport is a type of tourism business activities that deserves a reward. In terms of tourism site trading, there has been a decree to allow stores to hang boards for their trading, and some localities have formed regulations on the board. It’s high time for us to honour these units.

 

We are unable to rank leading tourist transport companies as well as leading tourism site trading stores due to the lack of criteria and participants; therefore, selection will be continued in the following years. This year, the association will honour only one tourist transport company and two stores that have good business performances but has not yet named them in the selection list.

 

The association also wants to honour a leading tourism destination based on the selections by travel companies but we have to delay this because of few selectors.

 

Previously, there was a rumour that a large company, which has ever won the prize, will continuously win it and small companies will never touch it. Obviously, strong companies will win the prize but it does not mean that they will win the prize every year without efforts. Vietnam now has over 700 international travel companies but only three of which have won the prize for three consecutive years. Among over 10,000 accommodation units including 180 three-star hotels, 80 four-star hotels, 32 five-star hotels, only two units have won the prize for 10 consecutive years. To this end, they must have made great efforts to satisfy all the standards and they would not be bestowed with the prize if they had failed to meet some of the standards. The achievement has proven not only emulation among companies but also corporate inner forces at the expense of a thought that large companies and hotels will be obviously the winners.

On the occasion, the association will review the entire standard system to make suitable changes with priority given to transparency in order to accurately rank enterprises. The association will also intensify promotion of the honoured trademarks, which will be an important element to form Vietnam tourism trademark.

 

The association has been continuously keeping a close watch on and facilitate honoured companies to shine up their trademarks after the awarding. Websites of the administration as well as of the association always update the trademarks of the honoured companies and names of selected companies in a bid to make their trademarks more well-known to tourists. This is the responsibility of not only the association but also companies to take advantages of the awarding and build a corporate community and Vietnam tourism trademark.

 

This is considered the highest honour system by the tourism sector for companies. We often draw experiences after every event. Firstly, it is necessary to adjust and accomplish the standard and scale systems that should be closed to companies’ practical operations. Previously, absolute criteria were applied and now relative criteria have been gradually built. Assessments are made based on both qualitative and quantitative criteria, and should be suitable for both corporate law and corporate practical operations. Secondly, the assessment process must ensure that corporate financial reports will be more legal and exact. In previous years, all data were sent to state agencies at local level for inspection but now local tourism associations will certify them, which means that inspections will be more strict and real competence of companies will be inspected and certified by the tourism departments and tourism associations at the local level.

 

Thirdly, it’s important to boost advertisement and promotion of honoured enterprises, which will pave the way to building corporate tourism trademarks and a Vietnam tourism trademark.

 

To this end, we must accomplish and intensify advertisement, launch more websites to promote trademarks via internal and external mass media. The moves are aimed at stimulating tourism enterprises, honouring and learning from one another, joining forces to form emulation for more and more competent companies.