VNAT: Foreigners can manage tourism development fund

A travel guide (R) introduces the HCMC Post Office to foreign tourists. The tourism development assistance fund is expected to get an initial budget of VND200-300 billion (US$8.97-13.5 million) from the State and other sources, including part of visa fee revenues and admission fee revenues at tourist sites

Nguyen Van Tuan, head of VNAT, told a meeting on ways to develop Vietnam’s tourism into a key economic sector in HCMC last week that the fund management unit would be picked via a tender and monitored by a supervisory committee. It has to commit to operate the fund efficiently and set targets for each period of time.

“Every year the supervisory committee would inform the Prime Minister of the fund’s operations and review the efficiency of the fund,” Tuan said.

The Prime Minister has okayed a plan to establish the fund to boost promotions as well as develop human resources for the local tourism industry. The fund will get an initial budget of VND200-300 billion (US$8.97-13.5 million) from the State and other sources, including part of visa fee revenues and admission fee revenues at tourist sites, and corporate contributions. The fund is envisaged having thousands of billions of dong.

Tuan said the establishment of the fund and the bidding mechanism to select an eligible fund operator would be a positive step for the tourism sector. VNAT will only use the State budget to implement a number of activities while the rest will be covered by the fund to make promotions more efficient, especially for tourism programs which have been carried out inefficiently over the past years due to a lack of funding.

Last year, the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism got the Prime Minister’s approval for establishing the fund to support, promote and diversify tourism products as well as develop human resources.

Tuan said Vietnam could attract 9.5 million international tourists this year, about one million higher than the year’s target. “This will be the highest number of foreign visitors to the country.”

Nearly 900,000 foreigners visited Vietnam in August, bringing the total to 6.45 million in the first eight months. The January-August figure grew 25% year-on-year.

There were more than 7.94 million international arrivals to Vietnam last year.