Renovating Vietnam’s tourism promotion activities

Visits to Vietnam’s national tourism promotion website, vietnam.travel, have surpassed those of similar websites of Thailand and many other countries in the region, according the website analytics company Similarweb.

That has partly demonstrated the effectiveness of the Vietnamese tourism sector’s promotion and communication strategies.

Recently, many programmes and events have been organised to promote Vietnam’s tourism industry. Outstanding domestic examples include the Vietnam International Travel Mart in Hanoi and the International Travel Expo in Ho Chi Minh City. Vietnam also took part in many international travel fairs in foreign countries with the message “Live fully in Vietnam”.

The expansion and diversification of promotion activities in major markets have helped increase the number of foreign visitors to Vietnam. Specifically, foreign visitors to Vietnam in the first quarter of 2024 reached 4.6 million, up 72% from a year earlier.

Key markets in northeast Asia (Japan and the Republic of Korea) continued to witnessed strong growth. The Southeast Asian market recorded steady growth while the European market was robust.

However, there remain many challenges facing Vietnam’s tourism promotion, such as a lack of coordination between the central and local authorities, as well as between associations and enterprises.

Due to these challenges, the number of international visitors to Vietnam has not lived up to the country’s tourism potential. Furthermore, the stricter requirements of visitors also increase the urgency to renovate tourism promotion activities.

The need to enhance the effectiveness of tourism promotion activities was also outlined in Government Resolution 82, dated May 18, 2023, and the Prime Minister’s Directive 80, dated February 23, 2024.

In order for promotion activities to be more effective, it is necessary to have stronger breakthroughs and innovations. One of the appropriate approaches is utilising technology to step up promotion on digital platforms, such as websites YouTube and TikTok.

Therefore, it is necessary to improve the quality of messages, contents and images as well as utilities on these platforms to provide visitors with an optimum experience.

Promotion through cinema is also a highly effective method. In many countries such as the Republic of Korea, China, Thailand and Japan, many destinations featured in films have become famous and attract large numbers of tourists from around the world.