Visitors to Vietnam are very “drip”

International visitors to Vietnam are still very “poor”

According to statistics of the Vietnam National Administration of Tourism, during the holiday period of April 30 to May 1, in just 4 days, the tourism industry served about 5 million domestic tourists, including about 2 million arrivals. overnight guests at tourist accommodation establishments; total revenue from tourism reached about 22 trillion dong.

The most impressive ones are Thanh Hoa welcoming nearly 900,000 visitors, Hanoi in 4 days of public holiday welcoming more than 550,000 visitors, Da Nang reaching more than 254,000 visitors…

As for the number of international visitors, in the first 4 months of 2022, the number of international visitors reached more than 92,400 arrivals, in April 2022 alone, Vietnam welcomed 101,000 international arrivals, an increase of 242.9% compared to March 2022 and an increase. 520.6% over the same period in 2021.

According to Mr. Nguyen Trung Khanh – Director of the General Department of Tourism, although the number of visitors is not much, the growth rate is quite high, showing that the international tourism market is gradually warming up.

And in fact, Vietnam’s tourism is showing signs of real prosperity, especially the domestic tourism market. As noted by reporter Dan Viet, at destinations such as Ninh Binh, Da Nang, Hoi An (Quang Nam), Phu Quoc, Thanh Hoa, Quy Nhon… during the holidays, there were a lot of domestic tourists and tourists. On non-holiday days, especially on weekdays, the number of visitors is not small. However, the number of international visitors is quite small, there are even tourist destinations that take forever to see a few foreign tourists.

Many travel businesses share, up to now, their company also has international guests booking tours to Vietnam, but the number of tourists only goes in small groups of 1 to 2 people or 4 to 5 people. In addition, the number of tourists returning to Vietnam is mainly visiting relatives, overseas Vietnamese, or international visitors combining business trips and tourism.

Duong Doan Lam – Indochina Tien Phong Company said: “Up to now, our company has had quite a lot of international tourists requesting to see tours to Vietnam, however. Book tour to go is not much.

Our main markets are USA, Europe and Australia. My clients mainly want to travel for a period of 10 to 20 days and travel between 3 countries such as Vietnam – Laos – Cambodia. Most of the guests like to go on a long tour to all 3 Indochina countries.

Recently, Vietnam successfully organized the 31st SEA Games, international newspapers published information, pictures of stadiums full of spectators, images of Vietnamese life returning to normal, which made both The world knows that Vietnam has well controlled the Covid epidemic. However, looking at those positive signals, does not mean that there are no longer difficulties and obstacles. Especially the number of international visitors to Vietnam is too small.”

Explaining this “weakness”, Mr. Duong Doan Lam said that there are three main factors. “From my perspective, when I have actual collisions with foreign partners and customers, there are objective factors and subjective factors.

The objective factor is that customer psychology is not really ready for safety. They still need time to listen, after a long time of the Covid-19 epidemic.

International visitors are limited to Vietnam because of the lack of direct flights and few flights

According to Mr. Lam, besides the above reason, there is also a subjective reason, Vietnam is still a country that does not have all direct flights. Tuesday. For example, now I want to go to Vietnam but I have to transit through China, while China is currently implementing the zero Covid strategy.

Or as the transit countries are South Korea and Japan, both of these countries are not really ready to fully open the border. With such routes that are not ready, even if international guests want to go to Vietnam, they need to wait.

Next are regional flights such as Southeast Asia, the three Indochina countries have not had many flights. Customers from the US or Europe share with travel agencies that they have wasted their time traveling and want to make the most of their time to travel to many different places and countries, not just travel. stay in Vietnam and then come back, so it costs effort and money.

However, the current barrier is that flights in the region are not really ready. The flight frequency is very low, the number of flights is too small, for example, Hanoi – Phnom Penh only have a few flights a week. Unlike before the epidemic, customers can choose the date and time to fly easily without having to wait too long.

Currently, my client booked a tour to three Indochina countries, Mr. Lam’s company had to search and choose to have flights from all three countries, but the dates of the flight did not match his plan. surname.

Visa is the “key” to attract international visitors to Vietnam

The next subjective reason mentioned by Mr. Lam is the issue of visa issuance. Recently, the Government has issued Decree 128, a resolution on visa exemption for 13 countries, medical regulations for international visitors when entering Vietnam.

The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism and the Vietnam National Administration of Tourism have made great efforts to open up and restore tourism. However, for businesses like us, when doing tours, informing customers about visa work, they still face difficulties. There are customers who told me that they have declared an e-visa, but have not received a reply, or if so, the response time is too long.

While there are customers who book tours close to the departure date, for example, the tour departure date is in early June, they want to book a tour in mid-May, but because of visa procedures, they cannot book tours anymore. Many customers, when they see the procedure through so many stages of visa making, have changed their plans and changed destinations.

“We don’t know how to remove barriers to visa procedures. Businesses don’t have any information to plan for their customers. In a simile, doing visa procedures for customers. international at this time is like “blinding to find” the needle.

I don’t mean to complain, just a realistic view, looking at neighbors, Laos, Cambodia, they are doing quite well in how to quickly and conveniently issue visas. Website is neat and professional. Looking at that customers see high reliability.

It can be said that visa is the key for international visitors to come to me more or less, I think this is also the reason why the number of visitors has been dropping in recent times.

Besides, there are other reasons such as: the facilities are also damaged, converted, so it is difficult to best meet the needs of customers. Especially human resources are a big problem for travel companies and businesses.

From transportation businesses such as airlines, cars, cruise ships to hotels, care services… all lack human resources, or do not have the economic conditions to reinvest properly.

I know that many hotels are short of receptionists, housekeeping staff, even key positions such as managers are difficult to find former or professional staff,” said Mr. Duong Doan Lam.

Talking about the reason for the lack of international visitors, talking to PV Dan Viet, Mr. Truong Quoc Hung – President of UNESCO Travel Club said: “In fact, the current international tourist arrivals are very few. Most of them are experts or small groups of tourists. The reason for this is that the general economic situation is also facing many difficulties.In many countries around the world, income can only guarantee a stable standard of living.

This is the main reason why international tourists are less likely to travel than before. In addition, many international travel agencies have not yet reopened, leading to a limited number of international tourists.

In addition, in the potential market of China, which is implementing a zero Covid policy, this number of international visitors has not yet traveled. This is also the reason why the international tourist market is gloomy. Markets such as Taiwan, Korea, Europe or the US are also facing certain difficulties. At the same time, visitors also need to prepare before the trip. The markets in Southeast Asia are also potential markets, these are the markets that can be expected in the future.”

Talking about policies to support and exempt international visas, Mr. Hung said that this is something that should be done and should be expanded. However, this is not the main reason. Because this is a long-term policy. The rest, the number of visitors still depends on the general economic situation.

It can be seen that the solution to the barriers to the number of international visitors to Vietnam is still a difficult problem for tourism and travel businesses, although it is impossible not to recognize the efforts from the Government, the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, the General Department of Tourism, and the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism. The Department of Tourism and relevant ministries and agencies have tried their best with documents, regulations on entry, and health regulations to be loosened and relaxed.

However, it seems that businesses are still struggling, groping in the “bubble” about visa procedures, about flights… Whether from objective or subjective reasons, this is still a reality and a problem. making international visitors to Vietnam still only at a “trickle rate”.