Dr. Trinh Le Anh believes that the quality of Vietnam's tourist destinations is also undergoing positive changes. (Photo: NVCC)

Thanks to the Government's favorable policies, Vietnam's tourism industry is facing opportunities for strong development. What is the picture of Vietnam's tourism in the past year from your perspective?

After an unfavorable post-Covid-19 restart despite being quite early in terms of fully opening Vietnam's tourism to the world, many expectations are pinned on this year (2023) despite the overall economic picture not being bright.

In 2023, Vietnam tourism aims to welcome 8 million international visitors. However, by August 2023, the number of international visitors to Vietnam had reached 7.8 million, nearly reaching the set target.

Tourism industry data continues to show that the fourth quarter has many improvements: By September 2023, the number of international visitors to Vietnam reached 8.9 million, continuing to exceed the set target. According to many years of practice, the peak season for international visitors to Vietnam will be from October this year to April next year.

Therefore, increasing the target of welcoming international visitors from 8 million to 12 to 13 million, 1.5 times higher than the target set at the beginning of the year, is completely reasonable and feasible.

According to the National Tourism Administration, there are four bases for increasing the target of welcoming 12 to 13 million international visitors in 2023. First , the new visa exemption and e-visa policy, in which the e-visa validity is increased from 30 to 90 days, effective from August 15, 2023. Second, Vietnam's bilateral and multilateral foreign policies with the region and the world are increasingly effective. Third, the policy of reviving culture with heritages becoming unique and specialized tourism products, attracting international visitors.

Major markets that have reopened and recovered, which are also Vietnam's traditional markets, will bring in a large number of visitors. As of November 2023, international visitors to Vietnam reached more than 11.2 million, 3.8 times higher than the same period last year and equal to 68.9% compared to the same period in 2019 before the Covid-19 pandemic.

December has many major holidays that promise to create a breakthrough for Vietnamese tourism to achieve new goals. Of the total of more than 11.2 million international visitors to Vietnam in the first 11 months of this year, visitors by air reached more than 9.8 million, accounting for 87.3% of international visitors to Vietnam and 3.7 times higher than the same period last year; by road reached more than 1.3 million, accounting for 11.9% and 4.1 times higher; by sea reached 87.9 thousand, accounting for 0.8% and 102.8 times higher. The top 10 international visitor markets to Vietnam in 2023 also have changes compared to before the Covid-19 pandemic.

In 2019, China was Vietnam's largest international tourist market, followed by South Korea, Japan, and Taiwan (China); Russia, the UK, and France are also countries with high numbers of visitors to Vietnam. However, the 10 largest international tourist markets of Vietnam currently include: South Korea, China, Taiwan (China), the United States, Japan, Thailand, Malaysia, Cambodia, Australia, and India. The unstable economic and political situation in Europe after the Russia-Ukraine conflict has greatly affected the travel of this region's customer group.

Besides the achievements, Vietnam's tourism industry still faces many difficulties and challenges?

In my opinion, besides the improvements, Vietnam's tourism industry cannot be completely confident for a number of reasons.

In the international market, the Russian and European tourist markets have not shown any signs of recovery or excitement as before the pandemic.

Meanwhile, China - Vietnam's most important market - remains elusive due to the lack of stability in implementing border gate policies and macro policies to encourage residents to travel abroad.

South Korea is currently the leading inbound tourist market in Vietnam, but the problem of direct income and social income from this market still needs many solutions because their outbound tourism approach is difficult to achieve fair benefit sharing with destination countries and local communities; other international markets are still unstable...

The domestic market is still facing difficulties due to business activities, reduced personal income, mild inflation... from which, tourism purchasing power is challenged, people tend to save, keep a lot of money and gold without investing or spending anything significant.

The tourism business community, whose main bridge is travel agencies (TO/TA), tends to be clustered, fragmented, competing on price rather than quality; facing difficulties due to having to deal with OTAs (online tour sales units), passive in the face of proactive exploitation of customers with "full exploitation" price policies of airlines with or without links to destinations, service providers at destinations. TO/TAs themselves lack connections, form strong alliances, lack effective support from policies or cooperation within the industry/inter-industry.

Tourists have an interesting experience at Ba Na Hills. (Photo: Dang Huong)

To become a "quality tourist destination", providing unique and diverse experiences in sustainable tourism development, what strategies do you think are needed?

The quality of tourist destinations has undergone significant transformation in recent years. Technological developments, social media and environmental awareness have all influenced the way people evaluate and choose destinations.

Users, through online reviews and experience sharing, have become an important factor that needs to be taken care of to ensure, increase and upgrade service quality.

At the same time, the demand for sustainable tourism experiences, close to the locality, is also increasing. Destinations need to pay special attention to this in order to have the right direction to achieve high-quality tourism criteria.

Looking around the world, we see major cities like Paris and Tokyo focusing on improving the tourist experience by enhancing public transport, reducing pollution, and encouraging visitors to engage with local communities.

Iceland and New Zealand attract visitors with their unique natural beauty and commitment to environmental protection. They focus on sustainable tourism by limiting visitor numbers, implementing strict environmental regulations, and creating experiences that are close to local culture.

In Vietnam, the quality of tourist destinations is changing positively through efforts to improve services, transportation and other infrastructure. In addition, our country also focuses on sustainable tourism, encouraging visitors to participate in unique cultural experiences and support local communities. Destinations such as Hoi An and Sapa have become typical examples of the combination of tourism development and cultural heritage protection, taking into account the destination's carrying capacity and efforts to reduce the load. Actively reducing pressure on the natural environment and society, and local residents means moving towards sustainable development goals.