Vietnam seeks to lure more tourists from China, Europe

The Vietnam National Administration of Tourism (VNAT), travel firms and hotels will hold tourism promotion programs in four Chinese cities in China and five others in Europe this month and in June.

Chinese tourists go through immigration procedures after they disembark from a cruise ship docked at a port in Ba Ria-Vung Tau Province

According to the administration, the promotion programs will take place in Jinan, Hangzhou, Wuhan and Beijing in China from April 12 to 22 and in Zurich (Switzerland), Munich (Germany), Vienna (Austria), Budapest (Hungary) and Prague (Czech) from June 18 to 29.

The national tourism authority will carry out other promotion programs this year to introduce Vietnam to the world thanks to a forthcoming tourism development fund.

Nguyen Van Tuan, head of the administration, said the fund totaling VND400-500 billion (US$17.5-21.9 million) will be set up this quarter to help implement tourism marketing activities. The fund is 10 times larger than the amount annually pumped into annual promotion activities of the sector.

The fund will be sourced from the State budget in the first three years with around VND100 billion a year. Of which, 10% will be fee revenue from visa and immigration services for foreigners and 5% from admission fees at tourist attractions.

Last year, large travel firms promised to support the country’s tourism promotion activities at ITB Berlin in Germany and World Travel Market in the UK, and build a tourism promotion website in English at http://vietnamtourism.vn/ by 2020 to introduce Vietnamese tourism products and services.

According to VNAT, the country welcomed more than 1.34 million international visitors last month, up 33.6% over the same period last year, taking the total in the first quarter of the year to over 4.2 million, up 30.9% year-on-year.