Prime Minister chairs national conference on tourism recovery after 1 year of opening

The Prime Minister delivered the opening speech at the Conference. Photo: VGP/Nhat Bac

On the morning of March 15, Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh chaired the National Tourism Conference 2023 with the theme "Accelerating recovery - accelerating development". Deputy Prime Minister Tran Hong Ha and Minister of Culture, Sports and Tourism Nguyen Van Hung co-chaired the conference. Also attending were leaders of ministries, branches, central and local agencies; representatives of associations, tourism and aviation businesses, experts, and media agencies.

Reporting at the conference, Minister of Culture, Sports and Tourism Nguyen Van Hung said that in 2020 and 2021, despite being heavily impacted by the pandemic, Vietnam's tourism development capacity index still increased, ranking among the three countries with the highest level of improvement in the world.

Since November 2021, Vietnam has piloted welcoming international tourists and officially fully reopened tourism from March 15, 2022, which is an important turning point to promote strong and vibrant tourism recovery, including domestic tourism.

These are vivid evidences of the development of Vietnam tourism, reinforcing the belief in its recovery and strong development in the coming period. Tourism has increasingly affirmed its important position in socio-economic development; contributing to job creation, hunger eradication, poverty reduction, ensuring social security; preserving and promoting cultural values; protecting the environment; maintaining national defense and security and affirming the image, position and prestige of Vietnam in the international arena.

However, the tourism industry still has limitations such as the number of international visitors to Vietnam before COVID-19 grew rapidly, but the number of arrivals was still lower than some countries in the region; the rate of international tourists returning was not high.

Despite being an early country to open tourism, Vietnam's international visitor rate in 2022 compared to 2019 is lower than other countries in the region. According to the Tourism Advisory Board's report, Vietnam's tourism recovery index after COVID-19 is only 18.1%, the lowest in the region.

In general, the development of Vietnam's tourism industry has not been commensurate with its potential and advantages, is not sustainable, is not highly competitive and faces many major challenges such as the trend of globalization and deep international integration, especially the Fourth Industrial Revolution, which poses many new challenges and difficulties, requiring innovative thinking, new approaches, and new ways of doing things to develop the tourism industry.

The conference was held online in 63 provinces and cities. Photo: VGP/Nhat Bac

Speaking at the conference, Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh emphasized that this is a very important conference and was prepared early with many expectations for breakthrough steps in recovery and development of tourism, thereby actively contributing to the development of directly related industries and fields, as well as the socio-economic development of the country in general.

The Prime Minister said that since the 2020 national tourism conference, the tourism industry has gone through two difficult years, suffering heavy losses due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. Faced with such heavy impacts, the Government has issued many policies and taken timely support measures to reduce difficulties and losses for businesses and workers; especially the motto of safe and flexible adaptation and effective control of the pandemic.

Exactly 1 year ago, on March 15, 2022, when the COVID-19 epidemic was quite firmly controlled, we decided to fully reopen tourism activities, completely lift entry restrictions, and welcome international visitors earlier than many countries in the Southeast Asian region. This is an important turning point for socio-economic recovery.

With great efforts and endeavors of the tourism industry, under the leadership of the Party, the management and administration of the State, the participation of the entire political system, the companionship and support of the business community and the People, in 2022, the Vietnamese tourism market has gradually recovered.

However, many countries, markets, and major, traditional tourism partners of ours are still facing complicated developments of the pandemic and have had to implement measures to restrict entry and exit. In addition, the negative impact of the Russia-Ukraine conflict has made our country's tourism face many difficulties, especially in attracting international tourists.

The Prime Minister pointed out that in 2023 and the coming time, entry and exit barriers due to COVID-19 will be removed. This move will bring opportunities and advantages but also many difficulties, challenges and competition between us and other tourism markets.

To develop tourism into a truly spearhead economic sector as proposed in Resolution 08 of the Politburo, we must find solutions to short-term and long-term problems; The Prime Minister proposed to provide answers to questions such as: Is tourism development on the right track? Have we taken full advantage of the different potentials, outstanding opportunities, and competitive advantages of each locality and region? Besides objective reasons such as the COVID-19 pandemic, the Russia-Ukraine conflict, etc., what are the subjective reasons that have prevented tourism from really making a breakthrough?

Is our approach appropriate? Is it correct and accurate? Why is there still a fragmented and haphazard way of doing tourism? Why is the rate of international visitors returning to Vietnam still low? Have we done a good job of promoting and advertising tourism? Why are only 18% of Korean visitors "confident in their understanding of Vietnam", while 62% of Japanese visitors say they only know "relatively".

The Prime Minister emphasized that we are the country that opened tourism early in the region; so what is the reason that we are "going slow", "going ahead and leaving behind" like that? What policies are there to link tourism development, public-private cooperation, and mobilize resources? What mechanisms are there to encourage and facilitate tourism development such as visa policies, traffic connections; infrastructure, information technology, incentives, and incentives for tourism investment...? What effective solutions are there to develop high-quality tourism human resources? What international experiences from countries around the world, especially countries in the region, can we learn from? To achieve and exceed the 2023 target: striving to welcome 110 million tourists, including 8 million international visitors, 102 million domestic tourists, and total revenue from tourists reaching 650 trillion VND, what measures must be taken? - The Prime Minister asked. /.