Visit souvenir shops at Vo Thi Sau walking street

The statement of Mr. Dang Manh Phuoc, CEO of The Outbox Company, specializing in market research and in-depth data analysis on tourism and hotels in Thua Thien Hue newspaper recently made many people startled. But the surprise is not because it is a new discovery, but because this is a reality that has been pointed out for many years. However, up to this point, tourism products of localities across the country, including Thua Thien Hue, are still similar to each other.

Not only tourism products in general but also specific products, such as night streets or "night economy ", Hue and other localities in the country also visit and learn from each other, doing almost the same thing. And of course the results are equally bleak after the opening days with loud drums and trumpets. Take the example of the "premature death" of the Imperial City night street, which was once highly expected by the government and people to be a product that attracts visitors because of its novelty and unique characteristics of Hue. This is a street that was implemented with a methodical and thorough project with seminars, many times taking feedback from experts and local people as well as receiving high consensus and agreement.

However, after a period of implementation, the Imperial City night market showed that it was following the same path as previous night markets. That is, it still had the characteristics of night markets that were everywhere in the North and South instead of the characteristics of Hue, with cheap food and shopping items that could be found anywhere, not only in Hue. The failure of the Imperial City night market came from many reasons, the most basic of which were still weak and amateurish in organization; unsynchronized implementation; and over-committing due to lack of resources, both economic and human.

According to Mr. Dang Manh Phuoc, the reason why tourism products of Hue and other localities are similar is because the people who create the products are similar in thinking and ideas, when they do not pay attention to the market and do not put customers at the center. To put it bluntly, we are still selling the products we have instead of selling the products that tourists need.

According to Mr. Dang Manh Phuoc, ignoring the market problem, going straight from available resources to create tourism products or copying services that are attracting the attention of society, creating new trends in the hope that the product will attract tourists, bring development to the locality without meeting the needs of product users, lacking information about the market before making the product is a situation that is happening in many places.

When there is no competition in products between localities, the advantage of attracting visitors or prolonging their stay - like between Hue and Da Nang or Hoi An - will now lean towards convenient transportation and service quality. And we must also frankly admit the objective and subjective reality: In terms of both transportation and service quality, Hue cannot and has not been able to compare with the above mentioned places.

Therefore, to compete in terms of the number of visitors and length of stay with other localities, Hue not only invests effort and money, including patience - not beating the drum and giving up like the example of the Imperial City night street, but also has to have a strategy to improve service quality, overcome inherent weaknesses to create truly different tourism products.

Article: Hoang Van Minh - Photo: Ngoc Hoa