To continue to assert its role as an economic driving force, Vietnamese tourism needs to take advantage of opportunities, promote advantages, and build an in-depth promotional strategy associated with a diverse product system rich in experiences.
Impressive numbers
According to the report from the General Statistics Office ( Ministry of Finance ), in the first 6 months of 2025, our country welcomed nearly 10.7 million international visitors, an increase of 20.7% over the same period in 2024, reaching 48.6% of the 2025 plan (22-23 million visitors); at the same time, serving 77.5 million domestic visitors, an increase of 8.5% over the same period in 2024, reaching 64.5% of the 2025 plan (120-130 million visitors); total revenue from tourists is estimated at 518,000 billion VND, reaching 52.8% of the yearly plan (980,000-1,050,000 billion VND).
These are surprising numbers, especially when many countries in the region are still struggling to find a way to recover. As in the first quarter 2025 report of the United Nations Tourism Organization (UN Tourism), Vietnam was identified as leading the Asia-Pacific region in international visitor growth (up 30% compared to the first quarter of 2024) and ranked second in international visitor recovery (up 34% compared to the first quarter of 2019).
This not only shows the strong acceleration of Vietnamese tourism, but also proves that the S-shaped strip of land is emerging as an attractive destination on the regional and world tourism map.
Contributing to this new look, it is impossible not to mention the efforts in building tourism products. Identifying this as the "key" to attracting visitors to stay longer and spend more, in recent times, many travel businesses have coordinated with localities to innovate and develop a diverse and unique tourism product system; combining the exploitation of the potential and competitive advantages of the destination with the promotion of heritage values and national cultural identity.
These include the “Enjoy Da Nang” Festival; the “Ocean Connecting the Great Forest” product (Phu Quoc); “Old War Zone - New Experience” (Tuyen Quang); the high-quality “Red Flamboyant” train (Hai Phong); especially the patriotic tourism product set launched on the occasion of the recent April 30-May 1 holiday, such as “From Mau Than to the Great Spring Victory”, “Legend of the heroic commandos of Sac Forest - Steel Land and Bronze Citadel - Ho Chi Minh City”…
In addition, the tourism industry also pays special attention to promotion and advertising. Along with actively participating in major international tourism forums and fairs, many large-scale tourism events have been promoted by localities and businesses, such as the Vietnam International Tourism Fair - VITM Hanoi; Ho Chi Minh City Tourism Festival; National Tourism Year - Hue 2025; Da Nang International Fireworks Festival, etc.
In particular, the tourism development stimulus program in 2025 "Vietnam - Go to love" launched by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism continues to receive strong response. The tourism industry has proactively grasped the trend, applied 4.0 technology to deploy e-marketing campaigns, promote destinations, introduce products and provide travel guides...
Locate resources, redraw the tourist map
For Vietnam tourism to make further progress, experts say, new driving forces are still needed. Frankly speaking, although our country’s tourism product system has become more diversified, its full potential has not been fully exploited, the added value is still low; advertising and promotion work also lacks highlights, and has not really created a prominent national brand.
Faced with the reality that global tourists tend to shift from mass tourism activities to seeking unique experiences, Vietnamese tourism must transform to conquer tourists with an in-depth communication strategy associated with unique and distinctive products.
Chairing the online conference to deploy key tasks of the tourism industry in the last 6 months of 2025, Minister of Culture, Sports and Tourism Nguyen Van Hung said: In the context of the whole country rearranging administrative space, the 2-level government apparatus has just come into operation, to complete the goal of welcoming 22-23 million international visitors, 120-130 million domestic visitors, contributing to the GDP growth target of over 8% in 2025 and reaching double digits in the coming period, the important task now is to position resources to "redraw the map of Vietnam tourism". "Redrawing" does not mean denying what already exists, but approaching with a new mindset to strengthen connectivity, promote advantages and development opportunities from the open space after the merger.
According to Minister Nguyen Van Hung, tourists today not only want to visit, but also want to gain many experiences and emotions during their travel journey. Therefore, tourism not only needs to become a key economic sector, but more than that, it needs to become an “inspirational” economic sector.
To do so, tourism professionals must start with small things with a big heart to create attractive products with strong cultural identity, inspiring tourists to come back many times.
Identifying 10 key markets that Vietnamese tourism needs to target (Korea, China, Japan, the US, Australia, Europe, Southeast Asia, India, the Middle East, Russia), the Minister emphasized the need to approach with the perspective of "market is the center, brand is the foundation", on the basis of building a promotion strategy with scale, depth, connection and touching the emotions of tourists.
Sharing the same view, Chairman of the Vietnam Tourism Association Vu The Binh affirmed that products are the core factor creating tourism competitiveness, so it is necessary to build unique and different products based on exploiting cultural resources. To develop tourism quickly and strongly, it is necessary to closely follow the two pillars of "green transformation" and "digital transformation"; identify promotion and advertising as the key task to attract visitors, combine modern and traditional promotion, promote the establishment of Vietnamese tourism promotion offices abroad...
From the perspective of local tourism management, Director of Hanoi Department of Tourism Dang Huong Giang proposed that the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism research and develop a comprehensive tourism development action program in the coming period, focusing on orientations, tasks and solutions for provinces and cities in industry planning; encouraging investment in developing new and creative products; digital transformation associated with building a smart tourism ecosystem; training human resources...
Director of the Vietnam National Administration of Tourism Nguyen Trung Khanh said that in the coming time, the tourism industry will restructure the market, promote regional and inter-regional action plans, focus on linking the tourism industry with other industries in the value chain to enhance competitiveness associated with green and sustainable development and the motto of "taking the experience of tourists as the center". In addition, it will continue to innovate in content and implementation methods, harmoniously combining state and social resources in promoting and positioning the national tourism brand.
Source: https://nhandan.vn/dua-du-lich-tro-thanh-nganh-kinh-te-truyen-cam-hung-post895616.html
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