Reasons why international visitors do not return to Vietnam

Like many tourists coming to Vietnam, Jorn (from Norway, has explored 58 countries) spent nearly a month exploring the S-shaped strip of land. Although very impressed with Vietnam because of its cheap prices, delicious food, easy travel, and diverse culture, last year Jorn shared on his blog the reason for not coming back here: Tourist traps.

A common situation he encountered was when the driver cheated on the meter by running it twice as fast as normal. When he asked for the fare, they agreed on 80 (meaning 80,000 VND or 4 USD - Jorn explained), but when they arrived, the driver demanded 80 USD. On a bus trip in Vietnam, the assistant driver charged him and his girlfriend 60,000 VND each, while the others only had to pay 40,000 VND. Although the amount was not much, both decided to get off the bus because they felt they had been cheated.

This feeling has come to Jorn and his girlfriend more than once or twice. According to Jorn, that is one of the reasons why the rate of tourists returning to Vietnam is much lower than that of neighboring Thailand.

According to the Pacific Asia Travel Association, the rate of visitors returning to Vietnam is about 10-40%, while in Thailand this rate is up to 80%.

When searching for the phrase "never return to vietnam", Google returns more than 100 million results in 0.51 seconds. Among them, it is not difficult to read complaints similar to Jorn's.

Tim Pile, writer ofSCMP, said that theft, traffic congestion, poor food hygiene, and rude taxi drivers are reasons why customers do not want to return. Tim cited the case of an American tourist who was attacked and robbed in Ho Chi Minh City in September 2017, but the tourist hotline was not staffed outside of business hours.

Share onQuoraJoe Bird, a tourist from Australia, gave several reasons why the rate of returning visitors to Vietnam is not as high as Thailand. One is that Vietnam is not an international transit hub. It will be difficult for you to get to where you want if you go through Hanoi or Ho Chi Minh City. This is different from Bangkok (Thailand), Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia), Singapore or Dubai, where Joe can easily fly directly to many places in the world.

Second, if you want to come to Vietnam, guests from many countriesmust apply for visa in advance. They can go through the procedures to visit Vietnam once, but in the following trips, they will prioritize countries that exempt visas or issue visas at border gates, which are much more convenient. Joe also mentioned awareness. Because there was a time when wherever he went, he heard people mention Vietnam - a place to visit once in a lifetime. However, when he researched carefully, Joe saw a wave of criticism from bloggers, telling about their experiences of being scammed and solicited while traveling.

At a press conference about the "Australian tourist disappointed when buying a Ha Long tour" incident in May, the then General Director of the Vietnam National Administration of Tourism, Nguyen Van Tuan, emphasized that just one scandal would affect the image of Vietnamese tourism because this information spreads very quickly on social networks and is very difficult to recover.

With security, safety, food hygiene... becoming a fear for tourists, Mr. Vu The Binh - Vice President of Vietnam Tourism Association, said that it is not difficult to solve if there is a specific person responsible for this issue.

Only meets curious and exploratory guests

Mr. Binh said that returning guests often fall into the group of resorts, shopping and business trips (MICE tourism). Typically in Southeast Asia, Thailand is a shopping and resort paradise. Possessing many shopping centers, Singapore is also a financial center, making guests return many times for work.

Meanwhile, Vietnam's tourism is currently mainly about discovery, so it attracts curious visitors. "Because of the need to explore, today they go to this place, tomorrow to another country. If the visitor is not satisfied with that trip, they will not come back. The number of visitors exploring Vietnam is very large, that is why the rate of return visitors is not high," Mr. Binh pointed out.

The Vice President of the Tourism Association said that if Vietnam provides good services and advertising, it can still attract visitors without worrying about the number of returning visitors in the immediate period, the next 3-5 years. Because 15-17 million international visitors this year is not a large number compared to other countries in the region, while Vietnam still has many attractive places for visitors to continue to explore.

However, in the long term, when tourist attractions in Vietnam are no longer novel, resorts, shopping centers and MICE tourism need to develop to replace them.

Vietnam has the conditions to develop resort tourism because it has many beautiful beaches. "If we turn beaches into complete resorts, not just places to sleep, we will have many returning guests," said Mr. Binh.

Shopping services are considered the weakest product of Vietnam tourism. According to the General Department of Tourism, international visitors spend only 15-18% of their total expenditure on shopping. Meanwhile, in Thailand, Singapore, Japan, and Hong Kong, this ratio accounts for nearly half.

According to Mr. Binh, the issue of developing special goods to sell to tourists must become a priority in the next 5 years, if we want to increase the rate of returning visitors, in addition to forming financial, commercial, and conference centers to compete with countries in the region.