Quang Nam has made many efforts and shown determination to digitally transform its tourism industry; however, the results achieved are still modest and only represent the initial steps in the concept of smart tourism.
Many smart applications
The Quang Nam province smart tourism software system is one of the outstanding projects under the digital transformation program for the tourism sector in Quang Nam, developed by the Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism in coordination with VNPT Quang Nam, and put into application since 2022.
Mr. Nguyen Thanh Hong, Director of the Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism, said that Quang Nam Tourism provides the Quang Nam tourism industry with an additional tool to promote and introduce the land, people, culture, history, and tourism potential of Quang Nam province.
Recently, the Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism officially launched a smart digital tourism map integrated into Quang Nam Tourism, allowing tourists to directly search for locations on the digital map and filter by location, hotel, restaurant, shopping, events/festivals, etc.
According to the plan, by 2025, the tourism industry will digitize more than 10,000 image files of destinations, tourism products and services; 9,000 raw files and nearly 100 films and trailers about destinations, tourism products and services, intangible cultural heritage, etc.
2024 is also the final year of leasing IT services for the Quang Nam smart tourism software system, as per Decision 1390 of the Provincial People's Committee (2021), with an estimated budget of 12.1 billion VND from 2021 to 2024. After more than 30 months of operation, the Quang Nam smart tourism software system is currently being deployed and used at the Provincial Tourism Promotion Center, capable of sharing and being used jointly for tourism applications and services throughout the province and the country.
To date, the system has updated 171 cultural and natural destinations; 55 3D data points and video clips; 17 VR360 data points; 1,303 tourism service data points; 161 hotels and resorts; 465 homestays and villas; 257 food data points; 63 shopping data points; 74 entertainment data points; 283 travel agency data points; and 1,245 news and event data points… This is considered an important data repository for tourism businesses in Quang Nam to exploit and utilize, contributing to the goal of digital transformation in the tourism industry. ( KHANH LINH )
Many localities have applied technology to promote and attract tourists. Notably, the My Son Sanctuary has implemented a multilingual automatic audio guide system and a VR360 virtual tour application. Hoi An City has applied augmented reality tourism and Hoi An-metaverse virtual tourism to promote and introduce the image of Hoi An to tourists…
Infrastructure must come first.
According to Nguyen Dang Huu, a freelance tour guide in Quang Nam, while tourists previously booked tours through travel companies, now most proactively plan their trips by booking accommodation, sightseeing, and meals online, especially younger travelers.
"Digital transformation is changing everything rapidly. We tour guides ourselves have to adapt, taking advantage of social media and digital applications to connect with customers, instead of just waiting for customers to find us like before," Hữu shared.
Implementing digital transformation in tourism effectively and with practical value requires a well-structured strategy and focused implementation. However, according to the leaders of the Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism, although the digital transformation of tourism is receiving attention, the specific mechanisms for digitizing destinations and the process of implementing "digitalization" and "smartification" of destinations still face many difficulties and shortcomings.
Digitalization activities remain fragmented and have not been fully effective due to the lack of shared and unified databases, leading to difficulties in managing, controlling, and reporting industry data statistics to make assessments of development trends.
Digital transformation in tourism in Quang Nam is currently mainly implemented in destination promotion and advertising, service booking, and supporting tourists in exploring and experiencing the area. Other areas such as product sales and tourism management have not received adequate attention and investment.
Destinations have been selling products directly to customers through smart applications, but this activity is still small-scale, thus limiting its reach. The lack of an e-commerce platform for tourism is a prime example.
Although digital transformation is considered a trend and a pressing need in the tourism industry today, not all businesses are enthusiastic or have the resources to implement it, especially small and medium-sized enterprises.
Santa Sea Villa Hotel is one of the few pioneering accommodations in Hoi An City that has embraced digital transformation in its business operations. Santa Sea Villa has implemented booking software through OTAs (online travel agencies).
To date, over 50% of hotel bookings are conducted through OTAs, allowing guests to directly book rooms and access information on hotel programs, products, and services without going through intermediaries.
OTAs (Online Travel Agencies) are also a popular smart booking application chosen by accommodation businesses in Hoi An. Ms. Pham Thi Linh Chi – President of the Quang Nam Villas and Homestay Association – acknowledged that most members of the association currently only use OTAs. Business activities such as marketing and data digitization are very limited. The reason given by these business owners is that their establishments are small-scale, while the investment cost for digital transformation is high, data synchronization takes a long time, not to mention the need for a technical team...
To date, nearly 400 members of the Quang Nam Villas and Homestay Association have yet to see any businesses truly implementing digital transformation.
“Digital transformation in tourism involves analyzing consumer metrics of tourists, thereby helping businesses calculate specific business costs and profits to manage risks. This is more suitable for large hotels with many rooms. For small villas and homestays with only 4-8 rooms, transactions are mainly conducted through OTAs (Online Travel Agencies), which are simpler and easier. Furthermore, the high investment costs are unnecessary, so almost no establishments are pursuing this,” Ms. Linh explained.
Digital transformation is not a major concern for the small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) community in Hoi An, including travel businesses. Ms. Pham Que Anh, Director of Hoi An Express Tourism Company, admitted that digital transformation in her company is currently only at a simple level, such as switching from printing documents on paper to scanning QR codes, exchanging and connecting with customers, and utilizing the data repositories of destinations and tourist attractions.
Small and medium-sized tourism businesses in Vietnam have not yet made significant changes in their digital transformation efforts.
Challenges of digital transformation
According to the E-conomy SEA 2023 report, part of a research program on the digital economy in Southeast Asia conducted by Google and Temasek, the digital economy segment in travel demand is projected to increase by 40% in 2023 compared to 2019.
Revenue could reach $100 billion, focusing on e-commerce, travel/tourism, food distribution, transportation, online media, and digital financial services.
In Vietnam, we can easily see a clear shift in the digital service experience at large companies like EVN, Vietel, or commercial banks like Vietcombank and Techcombank… However, in small and medium-sized tourism businesses in Vietnam, the application of digital transformation is still very modest.
As the director of Indochina Unique Tourist, after researching and applying digital transformation within the company, I have found that digital transformation is only successful for large enterprises, corporations, or businesses with strong financial resources, skilled personnel, and a wide scope of operations. Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) will find it very difficult to implement digital transformation.
Specifically, a recent study I conducted on digital transformation activities for 79 travel businesses in Quang Nam and Da Nang indicated that while most business owners are quite aware of the benefits of digital transformation, they face many difficulties in implementing it.
According to Ernest & Young's (2018) definition, successful digital transformation requires businesses to go through three stages: stage 1 is digitization, stage 2 is process digitization, and stage 3 is digital transformation. With this process, the number of travel businesses I surveyed are only in stage 1, or have not yet reached stage 1.
In reality, many travel businesses have not yet adopted software for business management and operations; many still use Microsoft Word and Excel, outdated and traditional methods for communicating and managing internal work.
We need an attractive financing package.
Currently, the biggest challenge for tourism businesses remains the cost of investing in and applying digital technology. Not all business owners understand the digital economy or have the digital mindset to guide and direct their businesses towards digital transformation.
The next step in fully and comprehensively investing in digital technology infrastructure within businesses also presents a major obstacle. This is because not all businesses dare to boldly invest in digital infrastructure, while the effectiveness of the investment is not yet guaranteed.
The third difficulty, also evident in the survey, is the lack of internal personnel for applying information technology. Hiring a team of experts to advise, consult, and implement technology applications within a company is a major challenge. Especially in the context of a developing digital economy, finding and paying highly skilled digital professionals only adds pressure to small and medium-sized enterprises, such as those in the travel and tourism industry today.
Currently, the tourism industry is being widely promoted and encouraged to undergo digital transformation in forums and media outlets. However, given the capabilities of small and medium-sized tourism businesses, implementing this transformation will be very difficult. Furthermore, without significant support from financial institutions, the government, or the central bank, the slow pace of digital transformation in tourism businesses is understandable.
Therefore, to implement a smart tourism ecosystem, the government needs to develop an attractive financial package, offering low-interest loans to small and medium-sized tourism businesses to support their digital transformation efforts. Furthermore, the government needs to build a team of digital transformation consultants to advise businesses that are interested in and committed to digital transformation in their tourism products and services, creating new value and experiences in tourism.
Furthermore, a comprehensive legal framework for digital transformation, ensuring the rights of businesses and guaranteeing an operating environment with minimal risks related to technology, security, infrastructure, and conflicts of interest, is also crucial in the development of smart tourism.
Digital tourism is an inevitable trend in global tourism, but the approach and development need to be tailored to the specific characteristics of local tourism.
Digital tourism
According to a representative from VNPT Quang Nam, the digital transformation trend in the tourism industry is gradually shifting from E-Tourism to Smart Tourism, and these two trends have significant differences. E-Tourism operates in an online digital environment; its impact is limited to before and after the trip; and the level of interaction is limited, mainly passive and one-way. Smart Tourism combines the digital environment and real-world experiences; its impact is before, during, and after the trip; and it frequently involves active, two-way interaction.
Currently, the trend in tourism is towards personalized and friendly experiences. This requires smart digital applications to provide optimal solutions for the specific needs of different customer segments, based on the digitization of large data systems from tourism entities.
Mr. Hoang Quoc Viet, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Vietsoftpro (a company specializing in consulting on digital transformation in culture and tourism), believes that there is no standard model for smart tourism or digital transformation in tourism. Many localities in Vietnam have different approaches. Technology, ultimately, is a tool, and the most important thing is how effectively we use that tool for the local tourism industry.
Following the trend of digital transformation in tourism, the My Son World Cultural Heritage Management Board has recently applied technology quite effectively in tourism activities at the heritage site, both to attract tourists and to use technology to create valuable cultural industrial products to serve tourism activities.
Mr. Nguyen Cong Khiet, Deputy Head of the My Son World Cultural Heritage Management Board, said: "The advanced techniques and technologies invested in the infrastructure system have truly brought positive results to tourism activities, optimizing them into products with smart digital applications."
From the VR360 virtual reality website product with detailed integrated virtual narration and overview, to the digital 3D museum model displayed on the Bizverse World 3D Map, and the multilingual audio guide product in six languages (Vietnamese, English, French, Japanese, Korean, and Chinese), the products put into use to date have been well-received and highly appreciated by tourists, not only for assisting in learning information about My Son but also as a truly valuable tourism product offering a high-quality experience.”
Selective adaptation
According to representatives of the Quang Nam Tourism Association, major tourist destinations in Quang Nam such as Hoi An and My Son must thoroughly apply digital technologies such as electronic cards and AI to manage entrance tickets, develop new digital tourism products, and enhance new experiences for tourists at the attractions or on digital platforms.
Meanwhile, at the national level, tools for measuring the added value of digital transformation in the tourism sector need to be developed. Reviewing and developing new laws to ensure operation in the digital age, guaranteeing practicality, and anticipating future technological trends are crucial. A stable legal framework and strict regulations, alongside fiscal policies such as VAT and sales tax incentives for businesses investing in and applying IT to digital transformation, are essential.
Regarding the My Son heritage site, Mr. Nguyen Cong Khiet informed that, aiming for the motto "putting the tourist experience at the center," in the future, in addition to traditional multimedia data (films, images, text, etc.), the smart tourism system for My Son will focus on building 3D digital data, e-books, and augmented reality (AR) models.
Meanwhile, Mr. Hoang Ngoc Quang, Director of Sao La Consulting Co., Ltd. (Da Nang City), believes that the camera system for identifying tourist density is an important part of digital transformation in the tourism industry today. The system uses image recognition and data processing technology to monitor and assess tourist density at tourist destinations.
"Monitoring tourist density at tourist destinations helps destination management and tourism businesses understand the actual situation and reflect tourist needs. This, in turn, improves the efficient use of resources such as transportation, hotels, restaurants, and other services."
This improves the tourist experience and enhances security at tourist destinations by detecting unusual situations or security risks. Furthermore, tour management and operation systems, as well as software systems for product advertising and presentation management, can also provide numerous benefits to users in terms of trend analysis and promotion in today's digital age,” Mr. Quang said.
In addition to the requirement to keep up with trends to meet customer needs, the issue of having a workforce proficient in technology also needs to be addressed and adapted to quickly.
Human resource training
Hoi An Memory Island (Cam Chau, Hoi An City) is a unit that operates high-quality tourism services with many programs that have attracted tourists in recent years. The unit currently has approximately 600 employees, 90% of whom are highly qualified and specialized personnel. The company is divided into 20 departments, and as many as 15 departments are actively implementing technological applications in their operations and management.
The business department manages online booking sites and e-commerce platforms; the marketing department uses social media, websites, and content creation applications to promote the company's image to customers. Notably, the restaurants at Hoi An Memory Island have implemented a comprehensive online menu ordering system using QR code scanning.
Each table will have a unique QR code. Customers order their food on their phones, and the information is then sent to the chef and the service staff, who deliver the food to the correct table. In addition, the company controls entry using electronic tickets, mobile ticketing devices, etc.
Mr. Nguyen Xuan Ha, Head of Training and Quality Control at Hoi An Memory Island, said that the entire unit currently uses around 20 software applications. These applications are continuously updated and changed daily to adapt to customer needs and conveniences. Therefore, the recruitment process for new staff at Hoi An Memory Island is extremely rigorous.
Mr. Nguyen Xuan Ha stated that, generally speaking, the workforce must be able to react quickly to technology. Following this, the company has a well-structured training program, ensuring that employees meet the standards and are proficient in using the software relevant to their job positions.
"Most of our staff are locals from Hoi An and surrounding areas, so compared to those from major cities nationwide, their technological skills aren't as strong. However, they are diligent, hardworking, and eager to learn. After our training, they quickly mastered the technology and applied it effectively to their work. Furthermore, the software is constantly being improved, so training for our staff on technology application is provided daily. Optimizing management, operation, and customer service processes is a positive point that customers have praised Hoi An Memories Island for over the past period."
Nguyen Xuan Ha
Approaches in the classroom
According to information from the Faculty of Economics and Tourism (Quang Nam University), in response to the digital transformation requirements of both education and the tourism industry, the Vietnamese Studies training program under the Culture and Tourism specialization was most recently adjusted in 2022.
The program focuses on incorporating the latest content into teaching through digitalization and digital transformation. Specifically, for tourism-related professional subjects, from hotel and restaurant reception, table service, housekeeping, to tour guiding, all utilize videos simulating professional skills from major hotels in Vietnam's tourism industry standards…
This will help students visualize the work, using trial versions of SMILE and OPERA hotel management software to practice operational and management tasks in hotels and restaurants.
Dr. Nguyen Thi Vinh Linh, Head of the Faculty of Economics and Tourism, said that in recent times, the faculty's lecturers have regularly updated the latest digital transformation resources in tourism and society. The aim is to help students keep up with the profession and apply their knowledge to their work immediately after graduation.
Furthermore, Quang Nam University supports lecturers in participating in training courses on modern teaching methods in the digital transformation era. For students, to access and learn content that incorporates technology, they are required to have electronic devices such as computers and smartphones with internet access. Some students facing financial difficulties will be provided with access to the computer lab in the library, open from 7 AM to 9 PM, Monday to Saturday.
Except for the years affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, which slowed down tourism growth, the percentage of graduates from the Faculty of Economics and Tourism who find employment in their field of study has recently exceeded 80%.
At the school, students have been exposed to digital transformation application ecosystems in tourism such as hotel software, VR technology, sales software, e-marketing, etc. When faced with real-world applications, students do not feel overwhelmed but instead begin to delve deeper into the subject to become proficient.
"Through surveys, businesses are very enthusiastic about receiving student interns and trainees... because the students have a good understanding of the work and can quickly adapt to technological advancements in management and operations. Businesses highly appreciate the ability of students from the Faculty of Economics and Tourism to access technology and adapt to the realities of the job," added Ms. Nguyen Thi Vinh Linh.
Performed by: VINH ANH – SON THUY - QUOC TUAN – TAM THU – PHAN VINH
Presented by: MINH TAO
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