Vietnam’s tourism communication, promotion and advertising strategies are creating certain effectiveness in attracting international tourists. However, with the increasingly strict consumption trends and service quality requirements of tourists, promotion and advertising work needs to have breakthrough innovations.
Vietnam International Tourism Fair - VITM Hanoi 2024 with many promotional activities, advertising, and product introductions to stimulate demand attracted about 80,000 attendees.
Attraction from domestic promotional events
In recent times, the tourism industry has organized many programs and events to promote the image of the country, people and beauty of Vietnam. In the country, the most notable are a number of tourism fairs held on a large scale, annually.
The International Tourism Fair - VITM Hanoi 2024 organized by the Vietnam Tourism Association has just ended. It was a big festival with many promotional activities, advertising, introducing culture, tourism cooperation and incentive programs... During the 4 days (from April 11 to 14), the VITM Hanoi Fair 2024 attracted more than 80,000 visitors with thousands of products successfully sold.
Ms. Ngo Thanh Ha (Thanh Xuan district) was happy to "hunt" for a service package (combo) including round-trip airfare and hotel in Nha Trang from a travel agency for more than 4.6 million VND for 4 days and 3 nights. "I came here to hunt for cheap travel combos and enjoy specialties of many localities, watch unique cultural performances" - Ms. Ha said.
Ray Lin, director of a travel company from Taiwan (China), shared: "I participated in the VITM Hanoi Fair with the hope of finding partners and creating more customers from your country."
The attraction of VITM Hanoi Fair has contributed to effectively promoting the image of localities as well as leading tourist destinations in Vietnam. More than 450 booths of over 700 units - 25% of which are international booths, the rest are from 55 provinces and cities in the country.
The exhibition area of Hanoi Tourism with the theme “Thang Long Hanoi - Charming Green Capital” is implemented by Hanoi Investment, Trade and Tourism Promotion Center in collaboration with other units, bearing the cultural and tourism imprint of the Capital with the model of Khue Van Cac. The area of the Central provinces bears the strong imprint of the “Central Heritage Road”.
International units participating in the fair from Korea, India, Taiwan (China)... bring cultural "specialties", introduce quality tours and attractive destinations.
A booth introducing tours at the Vietnam International Travel Mart - VITM Hanoi 2024.
In addition to the above event, the tourism industry also organizes the Ho Chi Minh City International Tourism Fair ITE every year, with a focus on technology and digital transformation in the tourism sector. The ITE Fair 2024 is expected to create 10,000 business meetings between international and Vietnamese tourism businesses.
Assessing the attraction of promotional activities at international tourism fairs, Chairman of the Vietnam Tourism Association Vu The Binh said that localities and units have organized promotions with very clear tourism messages. This helps tourists locate typical tourism products and interesting destinations suitable for them, bringing positive trading results.
Spreading Vietnam's image to the world
After the Covid-19 pandemic, Vietnam tourism has had to make great efforts to regain growth momentum. Communication, promotion and advertising campaigns are being carried out continuously. In addition to organizing domestic events, Vietnam has proactively participated in many international tourism fairs abroad and conveyed the message "Live fully in Vietnam".
According to the Vietnam National Administration of Tourism, in 2023, despite limited resources, the tourism industry has made efforts to expand the presence of Vietnamese tourism in the international arena. Typically, the Vietnam National Administration of Tourism organized tourism promotion booths at the Mekong Tourism Forum 2023 (in Cambodia), ASEAN Tourism Forum 2023 and TRAVEX Fair (both in Indonesia).
In particular, the Vietnamese tourism industry has participated in the largest-ever ITB Berlin International Tourism Fair (Germany); participated in the ASEAN - EXPO 2023 Fair (in China); Vietnam Culture and Tourism Promotion Festival in Korea 2023; introduced the image of Vietnamese tourism in Tokyo (Japan)...
According to Mr. Nguyen Trung Khanh, Director of the Vietnam National Administration of Tourism, expanding promotional activities in major markets has helped Vietnam's tourism increase the number of international visitors. In the first quarter of 2024, the number of international visitors to Vietnam reached 4.6 million, an increase of 72% over the same period last year. Major markets in Northeast Asia (Korea, Japan) continued to grow strongly; the Southeast Asian market grew steadily; the European market grew vigorously.
According to Deputy Minister of Culture, Sports and Tourism Ho An Phong, the promotion and advertising work has achieved quite clear results, helping the tourism industry attract a larger number of international visitors than the set target, opening up hope for a large growth rate this year. However, with the constantly changing tourism trends, tourists increasingly demanding high quality, the promotion and advertising work needs to have a more systematic strategy and innovation in thinking and working methods.
Creativity from perception to action
In 2023, Vietnam will welcome 12.6 million international visitors, nearly 3.5 times higher than in 2022, with a recovery rate of 70% compared to 2019. This is a good sign, but not enough compared to demand and potential.
In many meetings with the tourism industry, Minister of Culture, Sports and Tourism Nguyen Van Hung frankly acknowledged that the number of international visitors to Vietnam is still far behind that of many countries in the region, typically Thailand, Singapore... This poses new requirements for promotion and advertising work.
At the conference on tourism promotion in 2024, held on April 10, Deputy Director of the Vietnam National Administration of Tourism Ha Van Sieu admitted that there are many challenges to promoting and promoting Vietnam's tourism, such as fierce competition between destinations to attract international tourists; high service prices, airfares... have affected the attraction of tourists from some source markets.
“The coordination mechanism for implementing tourism promotion and advertising activities has not met the requirements, the disbursement mechanism from the Tourism Development Support Fund has not been cleared; the exchange, sharing and cooperation mechanism between the Central and local levels, between associations and enterprises is not effective. The tourism industry does not have an on-site promotion force through tourism promotion offices abroad...” - Mr. Ha Van Sieu further analyzed.
To effectively promote and advertise Vietnamese tourism, according to Deputy Director of the Ho Chi Minh City Department of Tourism Bui Thi Ngoc Hieu, it is necessary to identify key promotional events throughout the year, and then build them into annual events to create a strong impression on domestic and foreign tourists. In addition, management agencies should study the mechanism and form of organizing "Vietnam Day" abroad.
Looking at the issue from the perspective of tourism businesses, Director of Trang An Travel Company Nguyen Huu Cuong said that it is necessary to innovate the way of advertising and promotion in many direct and indirect forms. Technology can be applied to advertise and promote on online applications and websites.
“Recently, the Vietnam National Administration of Tourism’s tourism promotion website vietnam.travel has surpassed Thailand and many countries in the region. This reflects the positive effects of implementing Vietnam tourism marketing on digital platforms. We need to take advantage of this and increase promotional activities on existing platforms,” said Mr. Nguyen Huu Cuong.
According to the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, this year, Vietnam tourism will focus on implementing promotional activities at three major international tourism fairs: VITM London; CITM China Fair; ASEAN - China Fair. In addition, the tourism industry will participate in events and programs introducing Vietnam tourism in North America, Australia, China, Europe, ASEAN; India...
Deputy Minister of Culture, Sports and Tourism Ho An Phong stated that the requirement to improve the effectiveness of tourism promotion activities is set out in Resolution No. 82/NQ-CP and Directive 08/CT-TTg of the Prime Minister, which emphasize the following factors: Creating breakthroughs, changing thinking; highlighting brands, being worthy of stature... Promotional activities will be effective when there are breakthroughs in both awareness and action. To do so, it requires the cooperation and consensus of management levels, localities and the business community.
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