Vietnam should flaunt its marine tourism: foreign travel firms

Vietnam needs to promote its marine tourism more to attract foreign visitors since many of them simply do not know about its beautiful beaches and resorts, foreign travel agencies said at a recent festival in Paris.

Foreign visitors play chess at the Sea Lion Beach Resort in Phan Thiet.

The 2009 Vietnam Marine Tourism Festival, held by national flag carrier Vietnam Airlines and the Bank for Investment and Development of Vietnam at Pierre Cardin fashion house on April 28-29, included 24 booths set up by local travel firms and hotels.

Olivier Chiffert, a representative of US travel firm Asia Voyages, said tourists coming to Vietnam mainly come for its culture and do not know about its beaches.

She said events promoting its marine tourism potential should be held often to attract tourists since one event cannot hope to make a change.

Johan Six, sales representative of Belgian travel company Kales, said Vietnam needs to enhance promotion, diversify services, and create more tourism products.

If the country can do these things, its marine tourism can absolutely compete with Thailand’s Phuket, Indonesia’s Bali or Malaysia’s Langkawi, he said, adding it means Europeans would consider Vietnam a spot on the world marine tourism map.

Nguyen Xuan Hung, chairman of the Vietnam promotion center for trade, investment, culture and tourism in Berlin (Viethaus AG), said attracting European tourists would be good since they are big spenders.

“A German tourist can spend 3,000- 4,000 euros (US$4,000-5,300) to stay at Vietnamese beaches for a week to 10 days,” he said.

Bart De Four, an executive of Odysseus, a Belgian luxury travel agency, said many Europeans think of Vietnam as a tour destination and few know that the country is also a leisure destination thanks to its nice beaches and high-end resorts.

Tourists living in cold countries would see Vietnam’s beaches as a good place to spend winters if the country’s tourism sector holds more events like this, Irina Bosak from Russian travel operator Valma-M said.

Rudy Van Brork, who lives in Paris, was surprised to learn about Vietnam’s coastal resorts at the festival.

He said Vietnamese beaches are very beautiful though he had never known they have so many coastal resorts.

Pham Ngoc Minh, general director of Vietnam Airlines, said the carrier decided to organize the festival to attract Western European visitors as the number of foreign tourists to Vietnam is falling.

The number dropped 17.8 percent to around 1.3 million in the first four months compared to the same period last year as a result of the global downturn, according to the General Statistics Office.

Minh said his airline plans to increase the number of flights between Paris and Hanoi/HCMC from six to eight a week starting next October.

It would also increase the number of Frankfurt -Vietnam flights to six from five and Moscow -Vietnam flights to five from four, also starting October, he added.

The tourism sector, which employs more than 10 percent of the nation’s workforce, expects 4.5 million foreign travelers to visit the country this year.