Tourism sector ready to put itself in shop window

The tourism sector has proposed the government set aside $1 from each international visitor to enrich current meager budget for tourism promotion, according to Vietnam National Administration of Tourism (VNAT) chief Nguyen Van Tuan.

The current budget for tourism promotion is VND30 billion ($1.4 million), regarded as incommensurate with the country welcoming six million foreign visitors per year.

In light of Vietnam’s tourism marketing strategy to 2020 and tourism marketing action plan 2013-2015, Vietnam will strive to bolster the number of international visitors to 8.2 million by 2016, 2.2 million more than present.

To reach the goal, experts from the Environmental and Social Responsibility tourism sector capacity-building programme (ESRT) estimated that the sector would need $7 million for brand promotion activities.

If the proposal is approved, by 2016 Vietnam would have $8.2 million to put in promotion.

“The proposal is reasonable since part of the state budget comes from international visitors,” said Luu Duc Ke, director of travel company Hanoitourist.

“The budget needs to reinvest in the tourism sector based on visitor numbers. At least, the state allows the tourism sector to deduct $1 from one international visitor. If $5 was deducted from one visitor, with current six million international visitors Vietnam would have $30 million per year for tourism brand promotion instead of current $1.4 million,” Ke argued.

Apex Vietnam director Nguyen Van Tran said the VNAT could soon open a representative office in Japan for promotion activities if the proposal was approved.

Tran said the Japanese side had agreed for Vietnam to use two transaction desks in a Tokyo office for tourism promotion. It would need $300,000 per year to keep the office running. Three joint venture companies with the largest Japanese visitor numbers to Vietnam - Apex Vietnam, HIS Song Han Vietnam and JTB-TNT Company Limited - have agreed to contribute $100,000, the remainder will be offset by the VNAT.

The VNAT, however, has yet to have budget to join efforts with the businesses to push up the move.