The Vietnam National Administration of Tourism VNAT has spent a
lot of money on tourism promotion campaigns. However, the costly programs prove
to be unprofessional and ineffective.
Fastening belt in economic downturn
VNAT has suggested a mechanism on budgeting tourism promotion campaigns,
under which one dollar earned from every traveler to Vietnam would be
re-invested to advertise and promote Vietnam’s tourism in Vietnam and in foreign
With the mechanism, the more foreign tourists to Vietnam, the higher budget for
tourism promotion campaigns would be allocated. In 2011, for example, Vietnam
received 6 million travelers, which means that Vietnam should reserve 6 million
dollars (120 billion dong).
However, in reality, the budget for tourism promotion activities has been cut
year after year. Nguyen Manh Cuong, VNAT’s Deputy General Director, said
Thailand and Malaysia spend 80-100 million dollars a year to promote their
tourism. Meanwhile, Vietnam would have only 2 million dollars this year for the
In principle, the budget of 2 million dollars would be allocated to different
agencies. It is estimated that 70 percent of the sum would be put under the
management of VNAT, while 20 percent would go to the International Cooperation
Agency, and the remaining to some small projects. The dispersing of the
resources is believed to be not a good choice, because this would lead to the
overlapping and low efficiency.
The limited budget is really a big barrier that hinders the advertisement and
promotion activities. Though VNAT attends foreign trade fairs to promote
Vietnam’s tourism, it lacks money to organize supporting events, such as press
conferences, reception or visual promotion activities.
The representative of Sao Viet travel firm said that the lack of money makes the
Vietnamese booth at trade fairs dim and unattractive. Meanwhile, some big travel
firms and the national flag air carrier Vietnam Airlines, which are believed
financially powerful, all have their own stalls and they refuse to display their
products and services at the national tourism booth.
Cut your coat according to your cloth
Pham Trung Luong, Deputy Head of the Tourism Research and Development
Institute, said it’s clear that the budget cuts would badly affect tourism
promotion activities. However, as the budget cut proves to be unavoidable for
now, it would be better to discuss about how to use the modest sum of money to
Luong said that while Vietnam lacks money, it still wastes money on the things
which cannot bring effects. Travel firms have many times complained about the
unprofessional way of the watchdog agencies in organizing the outbound trips to
attend foreign trade fairs.
Vietnam once brought a lot of leaflets to a foreign trade fair to promote
tourism. However, the leaflets were then left at the Vietnamese embassies in the
There could be two reasons behind this. First, Vietnam brought to the trade fair
the products which were not interested by travelers. And second, Vietnam did not
choose the right way of doing marketing: while people try to search for tourism
information on Internet, Vietnam only bring printed leaflets and brochures.
“One should not blame everything on the lack of money,” Luong said.
He believes that Vietnam needs to learn thoroughly about a market before it
plans to penetrate the market. Opening representative offices in the foreign
markets proves to be the best way to learn about the new markets. Besides, the
offices can also act as the bridge that connects Vietnam’s tourism with local
However, to date, Vietnam still has not offices in foreign countries, including
in Japan, which is considered the most potential market for Vietnam.