Vietnam has decided to pour over VND121 billion (US$7.6 million) into upgrading tourism infrastructure nationwide this year with the aim at fulfilling the whole year’s set target of welcoming 3.9 million foreign arrivals, said the deputy General Director of the Vietnam National Administration of Tourism (VNAT), Pham Tu.
The decision was made after the number of foreign tourists coming to Vietnam was in a monthly decreasing trend in the first half of this year despite the yearly increase over the same period of last year. In particular, the number of Chinese tourists reduced dramatically.
Accordingly, the money will mostly go to four key national tourist sites and 17 other specific sites to develop the national tourist industry into a unified system, Tu said.
He also announced the VNAT's plan to invest in the hospitality industry in the central coastal region and the Central Highlands, which consists of 19 provinces from the northern central province of Thanh Hoa to the southernmost central province of Binh Thuan.
Vietnam has witnessed a boom in luxury tourist sites in recent years. However, the number of foreign tourists had reduced month on month in the first six months of this year, from 350,000 in January to 274,000 in June. Chinese tourism arrivals, which account for 18 per cent of foreign visits to Vietnam, fell from 69,000 to 46,000 during the reviewed period.
Projects on tourism infrastructure have stimulated the growth of the industry, said VNAT officials. They also pledged increasingly tight management over ODA-funded projects, including projects on tourist human resource development funded by the EU, Belgium and Luxembourg and the Mekong tourist development project.
This year, the communist country expects to host as many as 20.9 million tourists. Of them, 3.9 million are from overseas and the remaining 17 million are domestic vacationers, an on-year increase of 14 per cent and 6.3 per cent respectively.
Vietnam & World Economy, VNA
Vietnamese
