Hanoi develops smart tourism

Travel with touches

According to the report of the National Tourism Administration, since the beginning of the year, the tourism industry has welcomed 12,227,196 visitors, an increase of 22.5% over the same period in 2024. Regarding changes in tourist behavior, Deputy Director of the National Tourism Administration Ha Van Sieu said that, unlike traditional tours, smart tourism focuses more on the benefits and feelings of tourists, but still ensures low costs, safety and convenience.

“In the past, if tourists wanted to travel, they would traditionally look for tours from travel agencies and follow the experiences of those who had traveled before. But now all they need is a smartphone. The reason is that everything from booking hotels, tours, restaurants, issuing visas, buying airline tickets, choosing destinations, etc. can be done through apps and websites,” Mr. Sieu stated.

Agreeing with this opinion, Chairman of the Board of Directors of VietISO Joint Stock Company Nguyen Quyet Tam shared that smart tourism helps people access information quickly, easily, diversely and with the most information. Through smart tourism with "touches", tourism businesses have more opportunities to promote products to tourists through the internet system.

“Through social networking sites such as Zalo, Facebook or email, tourism businesses can promote tours and services to tourists, thereby attracting customers to book tours and use services. More importantly, this promotion activity increases the ability to reach international markets for each customer segment without incurring any costs,” Mr. Tam gave an example.

Statistics from the Vietnam E-commerce Association (VECOM) show that the rate of domestic tourists booking hotels and tours online is over 60%; the rate of international tourists using these two services is over 75%.

In the Vietnamese market alone, 71% of international tourists look up destination information on the Internet; 64% book and buy services online. Thus, it can be seen that the number of tourists using smart tourism to buy tours, book rooms, buy airline tickets, pay online... is increasing. They are directly becoming potential "smart tourists" of Vietnam tourism in general and Hanoi in particular.

Hanoi develops smart tourism

Despite positive changes, according to experts, developing smart tourism in Vietnam still faces many difficulties. Currently, Vietnamese tourism businesses are mainly small and medium-sized enterprises, retail businesses, and limited in capital, so investment in technology applications is fragmented and unsynchronized.

According to Chairman of the Vietnam Tourism Association Vu The Binh, smart tourism helps people access information quickly, easily, diversely and with the most information. To have a smart tourism model, it is necessary to create a system of technical infrastructure and technology to serve tourism development in a synchronous manner.

From the perspective of a management agency, Deputy Director of the Hanoi Tourism Information and Promotion Center Nguyen Huu Viet said that over the years, Hanoi has gradually applied technology in management, promotion, operation and connection. However, to create a comprehensive smart tourism ecosystem, the cooperation of tourism businesses, destinations and technology and media partners is still needed.

“Developing smart tourism is not simply about applying digital technology, but also about changing thinking: taking tourists as the center, considering their satisfaction as a measure of success. Hanoi tourism industry aims for modernity, convenience, safety while preserving and spreading cultural and heritage values. Thereby, when tourists come to the capital, they will have an emotional journey,” said Mr. Nguyen Huu Viet.

In fact, in recent times, Hanoi has always been one of the pioneers in the country in the field of applying technology to tourism activities. Most of the tourism companies operating in Hanoi have digitally transformed their management and developed new products.

Many relics and craft villages have applied technology to build smart tourism products. Up to now, Hanoi has linked and unified the data system for more than 300 tourist destinations in the area. Thanks to that, many relics and tourist destinations such as Thang Long Imperial Citadel, Hoa Lo Prison, Bat Trang ceramic village, Temple of Literature - Quoc Tu Giam ... have deployed electronic ticket sales, automatic explanations in 6 languages: Vietnamese, English, French, Chinese, Japanese, Korean. In addition, Hanoi Department of Tourism also coordinated with localities to build a digital map of destinations and culinary addresses for tourists.

According to tourism experts, although digitalization will facilitate tourists, it is not easy to implement this activity, because tourism products are made up of a service supply chain. Head of the Communications and Digital Transformation Department (Vietnam Tourism Association) Truong Cong Hoan said that digitalization will lead to restructuring of businesses and business processes. However, not all businesses are ready and capable of doing so. "Therefore, management agencies need to have policies to create an environment so that businesses have enough time to accumulate resources and innovate technology," Mr. Hoan suggested.

It is known that in order to support the digital tourism industry in the coming time, the Ministry of Science, Technology and Communications will perfect the institutions, policies and laws on smart tourism development. From there, promote the public-private partnership mechanism to mobilize resources to implement digital transformation of tourism, train, foster and develop human resources to serve digital transformation.

According to information from the Hanoi Department of Tourism, in order to develop smart tourism, in the coming time, Hanoi tourism will focus on digitizing data on tourist areas, tourist attractions, and service facilities. At the same time, it will build a digital map system for smart tourism in Hanoi, and increase the use of information technology in promoting the image of the capital's tourism to visitors.

“In the coming time, Hanoi tourism expects over 80% of Hanoi tourism businesses to build a digital transformation roadmap that is suitable for their capacity and advantages. From there, a cooperation network between tourism businesses and technology businesses will be formed, creating a smart connection platform for the capital's tourism ecosystem. Thereby, Hanoi can affirm its position as a "Creative City" of UNESCO, a smart, friendly and attractive destination on the international tourism map" - Mr. Viet clearly stated.

Source: Economic & Urban Newspaper

Source: http://sodulich.hanoi.gov.vn/ha-noi-phat-trien-du-lich-thong-minh.html