Vietnam remains a “hidden beauty” in the eyes of foreign tourists

Vietnam has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to show its beautiful landscapes on famous television channels CNN or BBC, or to advertise on taxis in London. However, Vietnam remains an unknown and hidden charm to foreign travelers. The arrow that failed to reach the target In recent years, Vietnam has been paying more attention to promoting tourism. However, the result remains modest. In the second half of 2010 alone, Vietnam spent 5.3 billion dong to run advertisement campaigns on CNN, which gobbled up 12 percent of the total budget for the yearly national tourism promotion program. A mini survey conducted by the Vietnam Economic Forum conducted on 200 foreign travelers showed that 77 percent of foreign travelers have never seen information about Vietnam’s tourism in mass media, advertisements or at tourism trade fairs. Ninety-three percent of polled tourists said they never see the advertisement pieces on BBC and CNN. Vietnam also spent money to place advertisements on 27 taxis out of 10,000 taxis in London in the UK for six months. However, local dwellers said they never see the advertisements. Vu Huy Vu, Deputy General Director of Saigon Tourist, said Vietnam needs to do many more things to popularize Vietnam’s tourism in the world. “Vietnam needs to have more and more publications introducing Vietnam’s tourism potentials. It needs to set up tourism representative offices in other countries to promote tourism,” he said, adding that other regional countries like Thailand, Singapore and the Philippines all have representative offices in Europe and the US for tens years. Meanwhile, a cheap but effective communication channel – Internet – has been ignored. Ben Chua is a Singaporean person who builds and runs vietnam720, an website that uses interactive products like videos, audios to introduce attractive destinations in Vietnam. “If you access to yoursingapore.com, you will find everything about Singapore. For example, if you type “art”, the website will show all the information about arts, from the events to places for excursions or the hotels near art centers,” he said. Ben Chua said he has an account on Twitter to listen opinions from people about Vietnam. There is a tweet posted in every 10 seconds, which means 36,000 opinions come every hour. However, no official agency has replied to the opinions. What is a new image for Vietnam? In mid January 2011, the Vietnam National Administration of Tourism VNAT officially announced the result of the logo creation competition for the new period. The slogan “Vietnam – a different Orient” has won the competition. However, after two months, the slogan has not been approved to become the new slogan of Vietnam’s tourism in the new period. It seems that foreigners still see Vietnam as a war torn country, rather than an attractive destination in peacetime. It is because Vietnam is still busy looking for a new suitable slogan to be introduced to the world. “Vietnam is a friendly, joyful country, where the prices are reasonable. However, the images Vietnam introduces to the world do not reflect these things,” said Tim Russell, Managing Director of Come & Go Vietnam travel firm. He believes that since Vietnam cannot build up a reasonable tourism brand, only five percent of tourists return to Vietnam for the second time, while 50 percent of tourists come to Thailand for the second time. He went on to say that Vietnam only has been trying to attract the tourists who are interested in the culture and discoveries, while it has not been trying to attract holidaymakers. Meanwhile, tourism does not only mean discovery, but also means relaxing, sunbathing, playing golf and water sports, meals, nightlife and anything that is a part of a comfortable life. He believes that Vietnam should look for professional consultants and should carry out surveys in many places in order to build up a professional marketing strategy.

Vietnam tries to attract MICE Tourists

A lot of big hotels in HCM City have been introducing their services, programs and events on their websites in order to help tour organizers consider designing MICE (meeting, incentive, convention, event) tours on demand. Tourism experts say that international tourists and businessmen nowadays not only want to attend conferences and exhibitions at hotels and convention centers, but they also want to meet experts to discuss issues in fields of common interests. Therefore, Vietnamese service providers have been trying to diversify their services to attract more clients.

Many hotels in Vietnam have been introducing special dishes on the websites, and trying to organize cooking classes for their MICE guests. If the guests want, they can even go to market to select ingredients for cooking themselves. In general, hotels assign their cooks, who are in charge of Vietnamese cuisine, to show guests how to cook Vietnamese dishes. The cooks also act as “tour guides” in the “tours to the markets”.

Cooking classes have become a regular part of the program designed for the guests at Sofitel Saigon Plaza, Rex, Caravelle and InterContinental Asiana Saigon. Discovering the taste of Vietnamese cuisine is just a part of the service package called “Insider Collection” and the sightseeing tour to HCM City offered by InterContinental Asiana Saigon.

The hotels’ Business and Marketing Director Daniel Kipping, said that convention organizing companies can access www.intercontinental.com/meetings to choose predesigned normal convention packages, or design the packages themselves according to their demand. The big hotel chain has introduced a program to be applied at the group’s hotels which includes new services which allow travelers to meet and discuss with famous persons or experts in the fields of culture or sports.

The main goal of the program is to provide tourists with deeper knowledge about Vietnam which may be helpful for them in making decisions whether to do business in Vietnam. The program was introduced at InterContinental Singapore in 2010 and InterContinental Asiana Saigon in January 2011.

Through video clips, the hotel has introduced event organizers to trips to the Notre Dame Cathedral, the HCM City’s Post Office, Le Cong Kieu antiques street, Cu Chi tunnels, or sightseeing trips in the central area with motorbike taxis – one of the most popular means of transport in the city.

Besides service packages with dinners on the cruisers running up and down the Saigon River, participants can also enjoy Vietnam’s iced milk-coffee, learning about the city’s life at 30-4 Park, tasting banh xeo (a kind of cake), purchasing silk products and pictures. Kipping said that the video clip and the information from Insider Collection should be seen as suggestions for event organizers to design suitable outdoors activities.

Caravelle Saigon has also updated its website with information and images about cultural and historical sites, targeting the travelers who seek places to relax or organize trips for businessmen and MICE tourists.

Cooperation will bring benefits Le Trung Tho, Tourism and Service Director of Thanh Thanh Cong company, said that the demand of MICE tourists has become more diversified, and that travelers nowadays always seek information online and order service packages which fit their plans and requirements.

Tho said that more and more MICE travelers wish to learn more about Vietnam through the discussions with experts. They also want to participate in bicycle trips to villages to learn about the lifestyle and traditions of local residents.

The high quality convention service packages are always ordered by foreign groups of businessmen and tourists through event organizers via mail, or ordered on the websites. Therefore, many hotels now pay more attention to developing their websites, which saves money because they can get orders directly from clients instead of via brokers.

Kipping said that clients not only demand meeting rooms with modern equipments, but also order sideline events. As one hotel cannot meet all the demands, it would be better for hotels to join forces to meet clients’ demand. Business Development Director of InterContinental Singapore David Lam has forecasted that the number of tourists, especially businessmen, will increase again after one year of decreasing due to the global economic downturn.