Cherry Huong

Beside industry and agriculture, tourism is considered as one of the most profitable fields for every country in the developing process. Each country bears distinct features comparing with other ones. When mentioning to European countries, people usually think of France with its royal lifestyle or London with densely-foggy nights. Malaysia, Thailand, and China are usually the first choices for those who want to visit Asia because of the naturally historical beauty. Tourists all over the world admire every specific feature of different nations. Therefore, they come and explore it. By taking the advantage of the own traditional value and special characters, one country can makes further steps to gain more reputation and profit with a view to broadening its image around the world. It can be said that tourism plays an important part in the development of these countries.
So attractive as the tourism field is, Vietnam – a rich-traditional and charming country in Southeast Asia– is also showing its potential to the world through the success of the tourism year in 2007. This event attracted 4,000 tourists from many different countries and made a great leap on the world’s tourism market. Tourists are welcomed by hospitable and warm-hearted Vietnamese. They took pleasure in the peaceful environment in remote areas like Sapa or Halong bay, explored the tremendous success in the Vietnam’s history, enjoyed special Vietnamese food, and took part in traditional festivals. Vietnam has never reached such a remarkable goal before. Moreover, the Government and travel agencies have been doing their best to contribute to the tourism development of Vietnam. “Vietnam travel” was launched twice a day on CNN in 13 weeks on October, 2007, which partly advertised its image to the rest of the world. In the up coming years, the tourism sector will be taking place a program aiming to receive 25 million domestic tourists and 6 million international visitors with revenue of US$ 4.5-5 billion by 2010. Vietnam has been standing a lot of chances to develop its tourism industry since WTO integration. Can Vietnam tourism sector become national key industry in the future? In order to answer this question, the paper aims at these following points: The potential of Vietnam tourism, its obstacles and Solutions to problems.

2–Discussion

a.Potential

With a view to becoming a tourism country, Vietnam certainly brings a lot of potential, which is especially different from other nations. First of all, Vietnam is proud of its cultural values. Thanks to the long great history over thousands of years, many historical remains are still preserved till nowadays, such as the ancient Hanoi gate, Temple of Temperature, The Huc Bridge… Visitors, who are eager to explore the old-aged Vietnam’s history, will have opportunities when visiting these places. Recently, UNESCO has recognized four sites in Vietnam as cultural heritages, which are the former capital at Hue, Hue Royal Ceremonial Music, Hoi An ancient town and My Son holy land.

Not only does Vietnam take its pride in historical and cultural sites, but Vietnam is also famous for its all round year festivals. Together with more than 4,000 years history, Vietnam consists of 54 ethic groups located in different areas all over the country. Each region bears special features forming its own festivals and diversity of Vietnam’s culture. There are various purposes for festivals to be held every year. People welcome a new year, celebrating an anniversary, praying for a good season, finishing harvests, showing respect to gods and so on. Lots of special events are held by different ethic groups, especially to celebrate a new lucky year with hopes and wealth. Hundreds of tourists have been attracted by Vietnamese traditional festivals yearly. Especially in January (according to the lunar calendar), a wide range of special festivals are celebrated by singular ethic regions to welcome a new year with hopes and wealth like Lim, Perfume Pagoda festival, Nguyen Tieu Tet and so forth.

Vietnamese people are also proud of their rich folklore treasure of fairy tales, legends, folkloric poems, songs and music, a long with a variety of traditional performance arts like classic drama, opera, plays and numerous arts of song interpretation. Amongst nearly 5,000 traditional instruments, Dan Bau is considered the symbol of Vietnamese people because of its characteristics. Ms.Mera, a French poet, made a meaningful comparison that: “The Dan Bau resembles Vietnamese people, full of compassion, plain yet noble, simple yet profound”. It is common knowledge that cultural and historical sites are priceless assets of each country owing to its truly national reflecting development through the time. Therefore, this cultural value is of great potential Vietnam’s tourism flourish.

In addition, the tourism potential in Vietnam is well-known for its natural assets. Stretching along the East coast of Indochina Peninsula, Vietnam has four distinct seasons: Spring, summer, autumn and winter. This is an advantage for tourists to experience every different profound feelings of each season. According to a recent research, Vietnam has 28 national parks, 53 national reserves, 34 historic-environmental forests. Besides, a lot of natural sites in Vietnam have been officially graded in the world heritages list, two of which are recognized by UNESCO as world natural heritage sites: Phong Nha – Ke Bang and Halong Bay. Moreover, Halong Bay and Nha Trang Bay have been recognized as two of the 29 most beautiful bays in the world. Cangio, Cat Tien and Cat Ba national parks are acknowledged as world biosphere sites.

The above prospective features promise to foster Vietnam tourism industry at present and in the future.

b.Obstacles

Despite these above possible factors, Vietnam still faces a number of difficulties. The first and distinct one is involved in low-quality tourism services. Many visitors who come to visit Vietnam complain about hotels. They are not pleased with small-sized rooms, room arrangement and interior decoration. Lacking of high-ranking hotels is a big shortcoming of Vietnam tourism, even when some international events are held in Vietnam, tourism agents get in trouble arranging enough good hotels for visitors. It cannot be denied that accommodation plays an important part in attracting tourists; however, until Vietnam renovates and upgrades its hotels rapidly, does it remain the same stage.

Bad transportation is the second element leading to the slow tourism process in Vietnam. Buses, cars or trunks do not meet the visitor’s demand due to its low speed, stuffy space. Additionally, there is still a shortage of transportation supplied to long trips or tours. Furthermore, not only do foreign visitors find it hard to adjust dirty-crowed streets, car hooter and traffic jam but Vietnamese people are always under pressure due to these annoying things as well.

Besides, Vietnam has a great demand for qualified human resources. Almost all of the tourism-related resources do not meet the obligatory requirements to reach profession. Some tour guides speak substandard foreign languages, some people, who have superior positions, lack professional skills, knowledge of the market, laws and management. The main reason of this is that they have never been specially trained in suitable colleges or vocational centers. Also, Vietnam has not established professional tourism training courses for those who want to work in this field. Therefore, the shortage of qualified human resources certainly makes a negative impact on Vietnam’s tourism development.

Some other bad services in Vietnam like banking, insurance and so on are also mentioned in conferences. A big challenge occurs to Vietnam tourism companies, especially the Government. Vietnamese Government, above all, understands the bad influence low-quality services are making on the nation’s tourism industry. Nevertheless, the probability that the Government supports much money in this field will be hard to be fulfilled owing to the lack of Stage budget. Furthermore, Vietnam needs a large sum of money to advertise its image to the world; however, the Government cannot afford it. In 2005, the State budget used for tourism promotion was VND15.6 billion, which is only enough to run nine half-page advertisements in the USA Today. This is the reason why Vietnam has been left far behind other neighboring countries as far as tourism promotion is concerned.

The final issue preventing the tourism development in Vietnam is the polluted environment. Being a developing country, Vietnam cannot avoid pollution. In big cities like Hanoi or Ho Chi Minh city, the air and water are seriously contaminated with toxic chemicals, fume from factories. One of the most important factors which helps develop tourism industry is the pure environment because almost visitors go on vacation in order to relax under fresh air, not dirt or traffic hooter. Therefore, the polluted environment has a bad influence on the tourism development in Vietnam.

All obstacles that Vietnam is coping with are totally likely to be solved because Vietnam is qualified enough with a lot of potential. What Vietnam should do at present is to find out solutions and take action to deal with these above problems.

c.Solutions

A number of measures should be adopted to solve problems. As can be seen from the second part, the most considerable obstacle of Vietnam tourism is low-quality services. The quality of tourism services must be increased in terms of hotels, restaurants, transportation and others. Especially, Vietnam should train its tourism-related human resources about professional skills, foreign languages, law, and management. Vocational schools and tourism colleges should be opened; Tourism agents may recruit and train their staff seriously; Employees working for tourism companies should be sent abroad to gain more knowledge and experience. In addition, some historical buildings in Vietnam are in bad condition and they need restoring. To fulfill all those tasks, Vietnam needs strong investment from foreign countries and support from the Government. With the country’s accession to the WTO, Vietnam is standing a big chance to receive capital or investment from foreign organizations and companies supporting the tourism field. Moreover, the Government should continuously use its budget to develop tourism infrastructure and other significant sites as well. One small yet important thing contributing to Vietnam tourism success is national-sized products. In other words, they are traditional souvenirs that tourists keep to remember where they have been to. These products must bring special features which remind visitors of Vietnam and make itself unforgettable in visitors’ mind.

Another solution is to promote propagandizing Vietnam’s image through the media by planning special events and advertising on TV, magazines, newspapers, etc… Through advertising campaigns and advertisements on different mediums, Vietnam’s image will be known by both Vietnamese and overseas people. For example, Halong bay – the famous natural landscapes of Vietnam – is participating in a selection for the world’s seven wonders. This selection is a good opportunity to deliver its message
to the world and put Vietnam on the world tourism map. “The advertising of the country’s images will be even more effective if advertising messages are sent by each citizen” - According to Mr.Hoang Tuan Anh, the new Minister of Culture, Sports and Tourism.

The above saying of Mr. Hoang Tuan Anh also raises a solution that Vietnamese people should contribute to maintain landscapes and tourism culture. The Government can take advantages of the media to popularize the message to its people. Furthermore, some tourism campaigns should be held in order to give Vietnamese citizens a close look and make them more responsible for the tourism industry of the country. By enhancing people’s awareness about the importance of these tourism sites as well as its positive effects on their lives, they will be the most effective advertisers for Vietnam - their own country.

3 – Conclusion

Vietnam has not become a major tourism country although it has much potential, which is mainly caused by low-quality services and finance shortage. With Vietnam’s accession to the WTO, Vietnam has more and more advantages to develop its tourism industry. Vietnam tourism year in 2007 may be a springboard for the flourish of Vietnam tourism in the up coming years. By 2010, Vietnam will celebrate the 1000-year Thang Long – Hanoi anniversary, the Government is planning a special event to promote its old-aged capital to the world. Surely, in the future, Vietnam will reach its goal to become an ideal destination for all tourists.