Undo the “knot” for Vietnam’s tourism to recover strongly

After a long period of “hibernation” before the negative impacts and heavy impacts of the COVID-19 epidemic, on March 15, the industry Vietnam tourism has officially been “opened up” again with many expectations that the recovery will create a driving force to promote the development of the whole economy. However, to regain the growth momentum and previous performance of this smokeless industry is difficult overnight.

According to Mr. Vu The Binh, Standing Vice Chairman of Vietnam Tourism Association, tourism is a general economic sector, associated with many other industries and fields. The tourism business community currently has about 40,000 members, with more than 1 million direct employees and 2 million indirect employees.

The development of the tourism industry will create a driving force for socio-economic promotion and contribute to improving the living standards of the community. Once tourism is restored, surrounding industries will also recover. Therefore, the best and most necessary support for tourism businesses at this time is to immediately issue policies suitable to the new situation; At the same time, identify the “knots” that are hindering the tourism industry such as issuing visas for tourists to enter Vietnam or accepting vaccine passports as a common trend that many countries around the world are applying…

Vu The Binh said that when we want to open the door, if we want to accelerate the recovery process, the issued policies need to be easy to understand, easy to implement and must follow the direction of simplification, so that tourism businesses can quickly implemented in practice. At the same time, it is necessary to have policies that ensure similarities with other countries, especially those developing tourism.

As expected, on March 15, the Government issued Resolution 32/NQ-CP on visa exemption for citizens of other countries. This move is considered extremely timely in the face of many reflections from the association and travel – tourism businesses. One of the obstacles has been “removed”, the policy of “paving the way” is gradually being opened to support and create momentum for Vietnam’s tourism to “take off”.

The necessary elements are there, but not enough for the strategy to open up the tourism industry as soon as expected. LuxGroup Chairman, Mr. Pham Ha frankly said, there is no good preparation for the “opening” in a comprehensive way; especially with the international tourist market. In the context of ongoing tension between Russia and Ukraine; Concerns about the epidemic situation and delays in communication, lack of consistency among ministries… make the tourism industry’s confidence in the rapid recovery unclear.

In order to develop the tourism economy, according to Mr. Pham Ha, the bottlenecks that need to be cleared at this time are mechanisms and policies, the quality of human resources, tourism products and the promotion of communication.

Specifically, quality human resources are becoming less and less and very difficult to recruit, most of them have moved to other industries and professions, so it is difficult to re-recruit. Existing tourism products still lack specific products but have an excess of general products. The implementation of tourism promotion activities is still not effective due to the inability to locate the national brand…

Mr. Pham Ha said that post-COVID-19the opportunity for all countries is the same, the provinces in a country are the same, so the locality that quickly adapts will soon recover and develop if it focuses on promoting communication further.

According to Mr. Pham Ha, in the short term, in order for the opening-up strategy to be successful, the tourism industry should have a mindset of dividing the market, choosing areas with the ability to recover quickly, strongly and sustainably to focus on promotion. progress and create good effects. The most important thing is how to have guests right this summer from May, June onwards and prepare well for the international tourist season starting from next September.

Sharing the same opinion, Mr. Nguyen Vu Hoang, Marketing Communications Director of Vietnam Airlines and Travel Co., Ltd. said that up to this point, it can be said that entry regulations for international tourists have “retied” more open”. However, a certain delay is needed for the tourism industry to fully recover. As suggested by many businesses in the same field, Mr. Vu Hoang suggested that the Government speed up the credit support package for aviation enterprises with 0% interest rate or preferential interest rates with a long repayment period. term of 3-5 years.

Currently, the cash flow of the aviation industry is drying up, without the support of the State, this sector will certainly face liquidity risks such as short-term debt, debt to suppliers…

Along with that, the Government is considering reducing the import tax on aviation fuel from 7% to 0% until the end of 2022.

Fuel costs for airlines account for up to 30% of total operating costs; Meanwhile, the price of jet fuel is tending to increase, so it will cause many difficulties for airlines in operating in the near future.

To realize the goal of attracting more than 5 million international visitors and 60 million domestic tourists, reaching a total tourism revenue of about 400,000 billion VND in 2022 will definitely need a lot of resources, support and attention. investment from the State, ministries, branches and localities. However, the basic and prerequisite factors still depend on the efforts, on the initiative of businesses and the tourism industry as a whole. No one else, they will draw their own future.

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