Tourism

Forum held on digital transformation for sustainable tourism

May 19, 2022 by vietnamnews.vn Leave a Comment

HÀ NỘI — The tourism sector must apply digital transformation to secure sustainable development, according to dozens of participants at a forum on the topic held in Hà Nội on May 18.

Titled “Green Light for Tourism to Take Off Part 2: Digital Transformation: Diving Force for Sustainable Development”, the forum gathered dozens of experts from State management agencies, tourism authorities, localities, and IT.

The first part of the forum held in March focused on opening doors to international tourists.

Hoàng Quang Phòng, deputy chairman of the Vietnam Chamber of Commerce Industry, said at the end of 2018, the Prime Minister issued Decision No 1671/QĐ-TTg approving the “Master plan on applying informatics technology in the tourism field for 2018-2020, with orientation to 2025.”

“Informatics technology has been applied in various tourism companies, especially hotels, resorts and big travel agencies,” Phòng said.

A visitor uses a remote guide app on her mobile at the National Fine Arts Museum. —VNS Photo Lê Hương

However, he said there had been no uniform application in the whole sector.

Phòng noted that the pandemic had seen the biggest ever purge in the field.

“Digital transformation has been proved to be crucial to all the fields if they want to move forward in the Fourth Industry Revolution,” he said.

“The pandemic has pushed all tourism companies and localities to choose: digital transformation or die.”

Digital transformation has helped tourism enterprises flexibly react to the changes in the market, he said. Based on available data, tourism workers could still communicate with customers to understand their psychology, behaviours and demands to introduce suitable products.

Phòng said not only enterprises but also locations needed to go through digital transformation to bring convenient and safe experiences to customers, like remote guide systems, QR codes introducing displayed objects, and automatic facilities to help customers send comments on service quality to managing boards.

“We can see that the tourism sector has been active in digital transformation and the Fourth Industry Revolution, aiming to form a smart tourism ecology linking participants from tourists, service providers to State management agencies, he said.

Nguyễn Lê Phúc, deputy general director of the Vietnam National Administration of Tourism (VNAT), shared the same idea that digital transformation will bring an opportunity for the tourism sector to develop more sustainably.

Phúc said in the past few months, the VNAT has concentrated on establishing a smart tourism ecology to create a “common playground” for localities and enterprises.

The VNAT has built a data system for Vietnamese tourism; established information connections among management agencies, localities and enterprises; applied technology to ensure safe tourism; pushed up the use of apps among management agencies, enterprises and tourists like the apps including “Safe Việt Nam Tourism,” “Việt Nam Travel Guide,” and “COVID-19 Registration & Safety Judgement;” and supported localities and destinations to embrace digital transformation, such as Hà Giang Province and Thanh Hóa Province in 2021.

At the same forum, other experts in IT and tourism admitted that digital transformation was now crucial as tourist habits had changed.

More and more tourists have been booking services online.

Nguyễn Quyết Tâm, director of Vietso, also the founder of TravelMasters, held that to build the foundation for digital transformation, first and foremost, the tourism sector should have a common technical criteria system so that different platforms can share data.

“Data built at localities and enterprises are not following any same standard,” he said.

The VNAT has noted the opinion and will gradually complete the common platform on tourism business management, which is scheduled to be launched in December.

The mobile app Việt Nam Tourism has been introduced at all hotels in the country. —VNS Photo Mạnh Trí

Enterprises need more support

Đỗ Hồng Xoan, chairperson of the Việt Nam Hotels Association, said three-quarters of tourism enterprises are small and medium-sized and need more support in the process.

“Small and medium-sized enterprises have been bogged down with various difficulties as digital transformation should be uniformed across State policies, ministry decisions, VNAT policies, association policies, and locality policies,” she said.

“They need more help from agencies to apply the digital transformation,” she said.

The Selection for National Distinguished Tourism Service Providers 2022 was launched at the same forum to praise enterprises making considerable contributions to tourism market development. All tourists and enterprises throughout the country can cast their votes.

The Diễn đàn Doanh nghiệp magazine, based on judgements of experts in the field, will announce the result and hand the certifications to top selected tourism enterprises later this year. — VNS

Tourism officials: NH got a record 4.3M visitors last fall

May 19, 2022 by www.sfgate.com Leave a Comment

CONCORD, N.H. (AP) — New Hampshire tourism officials say a record 4.3 million visitors came to the state last fall — an increase of 38% from 2019, the last record year.

Visitors also spent nearly $2 billion in the state, an increase of 65% from 2019.

New Hampshire officials said looking at combining the summer, fall and winter of 2021, the state saw a 43% increase in visitation and a 35% increase in spending, above pre-pandemic levels.

They said in the past year, New Hampshire has expanded its advertising beyond its core markets of New England and New York to include destinations within a 600-mile radius.

Prospects for green tourism real estate development

May 20, 2022 by vir.com.vn Leave a Comment

Do Chi Cong, member of EuroCham and general director of SB Invest

According to the United Nations World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO), Southeast Asia will become the fourth largest tourist attraction in the world, with Vietnam also developing a green and sustainable pathway over the next ten years. In your opinion, what is the core element of green tourism?

Green tourism advocates for minimal detrimental impacts on the local environment, biodiversity protection, renewable energy, the promotion of natural and cultural heritage, environmentally-friendly products, and the active participation of local communities.

Green tourism is the key to responsible and sustainable development and respecting natural elements. Minimising negative environmental impacts and creating a healthy environment are all at its core.

Thus, to be recognised as a green tourism product, all tourism services such as tours, hotels, restaurants, and golf courses must meet the above criteria.

As an expert in the field of tourism and resort real estate, I think that Vietnam still has a lot of potential and room for development to attract foreign investors into the green economy, especially in the high-end resort real estate segment.

After a long period of stagnation, the resort real estate segment is expected to continue to maintain its attractiveness and growth prospects. How do you evaluate the current situation of resort real estate in Vietnam?

Objectively, there are pros and cons.

Tourism has become a spearheading economic sector and the government has issued many supportive policies, which is the biggest advantage.

On January 22, the prime minister issued Decision No.147/QD-TTg approving the strategy for tourism development up to 2030.

Accordingly, by 2025, the average growth is expected to reach 12-14 per cent per year, and a direct contribution to GDP of 12-14 per cent. In 2030, total revenue from tourism should reach 11-12 per cent, contributing 15-17 per cent of the country’s GDP.

The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism has also issued a tourism development action programme for the 2021-2025 period. These are extremely important legal frameworks for the development of the tourism industry in general and tourism real estate in particular.

The second advantage is the rapid growth in the number of accommodation options. According to statistics from the General Department of Tourism, the whole country had only around 2,000 tourist establishments with nearly 95,000 rooms in 2009, but by 2019 the number had increased to 22,000 with about 500,000 rooms.

Thus, after just over 10 years, the figures for tourist establishments and rooms had increased by 11 and 5.2 times respectively. This is spectacular growth for an emerging market like Vietnam.

Statistics as of September from the Vietnam National Real Estate Association revealed that in 15 localities, there were a total of 239 tourism real estate projects with more than 114,000 condotel apartments, 24,000 villas, and 30,000 shophouses. The total value of these three products stands at about $30 billion.

However, the resort real estate market still has legal problems that have not been resolved.

Firstly, the concept of tourism real estate has not been specified in the legal documents for the real estate and construction industries. Therefore, this field still does not have a clear legal foundation for investors to build a stable and sustainable orientation.

Secondly, tourism real estate is currently subject to the general regulation of many different legal systems, mainly related to residential real estate, business investment activities, and management, supervision, and use of projects. The application of legal provisions from different fields leads to a lack of consistency and synchronisation in the application of state and local agencies, causing confusion in the process of addressing work. Therefore, enterprises face many obstacles due to unclear processes and procedures.

In addition, financial institutions face risks with capital financing for tourism real estate investment and dealing with related bad debts.

Can you suggest some solutions so that Vietnam can attract more strategic investors to promote the development of green and sustainable tourism real estate?

Vietnam possesses a lot of potential and advantages for the development of green tourism real estate. We need to create an attractive playground for foreign investors, which means that the government, as well as ministries, sectors and localities, need some wide-reaching solutions.

Firstly, it is necessary to supplement and complete the legal framework for tourism real estate. We need to add specific regulations for the sector in terms of construction, investment, and credit activities. These should include supplementing regulations on granting land use right certificates for tourism real estate, transferring tourism real estate purchase and sale contracts, and capital mobilisation.

At the same time, it is necessary to identify the types of tourism real estate in the Law on Real Estate Business and the Law on Construction and consider providing specific sanctions for investors and related parties when making commitments to investors in the market.

Secondly, there should be a synchronous policy to develop transport infrastructure in all provinces to promote regional connectivity. The government needs to study and develop planning strategies for the development, especially the north-south expressway, airways, and railways, as traffic is the lifeblood of tourism.

The planning between provinces and cities must have a seamless connection so that the cultural heritage sites, coastal urban areas, and key eco-tourism areas are linked into a complete tourism network.

Thirdly, it is necessary to have a key strategy to promote the training and development of high-quality human resources.

If traffic is the lifeblood, human resources are the backbone of the tourism industry. In the last 10 years, although Vietnam has produced people with qualifications equivalent to those in other countries in Southeast Asia in terms of quality, the number is still not high enough to meet the development needs of the industry.

Therefore, the government and local ministries need to formulate high-quality development strategies in the new normal, enhancing the capacity and adaptability of human resources in the future.

At the same time, a methodical and advanced training plan for management personnel and direct workers in the field of tourism real estate is vital. Programmes and certificates need to be standardised in line with those internationally.

Finally, the building of information and databases for the real estate market in general, and tourism real estate in particular, should be strengthened to serve management and promote digital transformation.

This is a clear trend in the world today with the goal of forming a smart and green tourism ecosystem that connects entities including tourists, service providers, and state management agencies. We should all cooperate to build a green tourism environment, facilitating environmental, cultural, economic, and social sustainability.

By Thai An

Illegal border crossing on the rise along with tourism reopening

November 7, 2021 by thethaiger.com Leave a Comment

While Thailand is eager to see foreigners entering the country after Monday’s reopening, not all foreigners are as welcome as others. A crackdown on migrants crossing land borders illegally and entering the country without quarantine caught more than 3,000 people in this past week. A spokesperson for the Internal Security Operations Command correlated Thailand’s reopening to international tourism with the surge in illegal immigrant border crossing.

A spokesperson for the ISOC said they are seeing a flood of illegal border crossing in the Northeastern and Eastern borders of Thailand of people looking for migrant work. They stated that 3,160 migrants were arrested just this week alone after attempting to enter the country illegally, bypassing the quarantining that ensures public health safety.

Most of the people were caught nearby the Burmese and Cambodian border, and were said to have paid brokers to aid them in crossing into the country and travel to Bangkok and other provinces nearby for work. The ISOC stress the danger of the illegal border crossing as they are not tested for Covid-19 and do not do any sort of quarantine, risking exposing the communities to which they travel to virus outbreaks.

Of those captured crossing illegally, the majority were from neighbouring countries as 1,807 were Burmese, 996 were Cambodian, and 5 were Laotian. The captures also included 24 people from India and 11 from China. Authorities arrested a total of 91 people connected to smuggling or helping these 3,000 people enter the country illegally, with 63 Burmese people and 28 Thai nationals captured.

7 Burmese migrants caught in Chiang Rai by security officers on foot patrol in the Mae Sai district said that they had paid 12,000 baht each to a smuggling broker who had promised to help them get across the border and obtain jobs working as maids in Bangkok.

In Kamphaeng Phet, a group of 20 Burmese immigrants were caught and shared the story of paying between 7,000 and 23,000 baht to a broker to sneak into Thailand. 23 of them have been travelling in a pickup truck when it flew off the road and rolled down a hill in Tak. 3 people in the truck were killed and 4 others injured in the accident before later being picked up by the police as illegal migrants.

SOURCE: Bangkok Post

Get more from The Thaiger

FREE APP: ANDROID or iOS | HAVE YOUR SAY FORUM |

Thailand to promote medical tourism in post-Covid era, PM says

May 20, 2022 by www.theedgemarkets.com Leave a Comment

Reuters filepix for illustration purpose only

^– A

⁺ A

(May 19): Thailand aims to lure more foreign visitors in the post-Covid period by promoting itself as a medical tourism hub, building on its good track record of handling the pandemic, Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-Ocha said.

A virus task force headed by Prayuth on Friday will also consider demands to reopen bars, pubs and other nightlife entertainment venues that have been shut for more than a year, amid a rebound in tourist arrivals. The lifting of the curbs are seen as key to lure more visitors in the June-September period, considered a low season for Thai tourism.

“Thailand has a proven track record in dealing with the Covid-19 outbreak,” Prayuth told a conference. “We will use this to promote the country’s medical tourism and health treatment to attract foreign visitors after the Covid.”

Thailand expects tourist arrivals to more than triple to about a 1 million a month from October, as the nation rolls back most of the pandemic-era travel curbs. While the country has scrapped mandatory Covid testing and quarantine for tourists, pre-arrival registration and insurance requirement are seen as deterrents with other tourism-reliant nations doing away such restrictions.

But with new Covid cases and deaths steadily declining, Prayuth has vowed to relax the remaining restrictions to boost business and economic activities, government spokesman Thanakorn Wangboonkongchana said in a statement Thursday.

Thailand has seen its Omicron-fueled Covid-19 wave ease in recent days, with new cases averaging about 5,000 a day, from a peak of almost 30,000 in early April. The country, which drew praise from the World Health Organization for its handling of the early phase of the pandemic, has contained total Covid fatalities to below 30,000, fewer than neighbours Malaysia and the Philippines.

The reopening of pubs, bars and other nightlife entertainment venues in some provinces can promote tourism and help millions of people dependent on such business for livelihood, Supot Malaniyom, secretary-general of the National Security Council, said.

While Thailand’s household debt level has risen to almost 90% of the gross domestic product, seen as a major barrier to its economic recovery, lower interest rates and fee charges will help ease the burden, Prayuth said. The government is also betting on large investments by some of the world’s top companies in technology and digital platforms, he said.