Promoting Sea Tourism 2019

Statistics of the Vietnam National Administration of Tourism have shown that on average, over 75% of international tourists choose sea and island tourism for their summer, and Vietnam has 28 provinces and cities facing the sea, contributing up to 71.5% of the total travel revenue of the country. The top 20% of leading localities accounted for 75.8% of the total travel & tourism revenue, of which the group of coastal localities has made up nearly 82%.

The most recent data in 2018 shows that the number of international visitors to Vietnam during summer has significantly contributed to the country's tourism sector. Specifically, in June 2018, the number of international tourists to Vietnam reached 1,183,102 arrivals; this number in July 2018 was 1,188,817 and in August 2019 was 1,323,546.The holiday of 30 April and May 1 marks this summer holiday. With 3 to 5 days off, the number of tourists at this time is also higher than the previous holidays. Da Nang city only, on the occasion of 30 April 2018, welcomed about 355,547 tourist arrivals, of which international one reached 101,634 who mainly came from South Korea, China and Japan.Mr. Nguyen Van Tai, Director of Vietsense Company, explained the reason for high tourist arrivals, which was because summer was the best season to go on vacation. With the hot weather which is typical of the tropical regions, Vietnamese and international tourists visiting Vietnam at this time mostly choose sea and resort tourism.

In particular, summer is also the time when students are off school for 3 months so many families take this time to go on vacation together. This results to the fact that most domestic tourists choose summer as the time to travel and go on vacation with their families and friends.

To promote the advantages of 2019 sea tourism, according to Mr. Nguyen Phan Anh, marketing expert, businesses must grasp the needs and preferences of tourists to develop their product packages, propose new and interesting ones to attract tourists, for example, there should be some new programs such as "sightseeing tour around Ha Long Bay by helicopter", "one-day gardening tour", "snorkeling and watching coral tour", "a night on the bay tour", "fishing at night", etc.

In addition, the promotion and preferential policies also contribute significantly to the competitiveness of sea tourism sector such as the promotion for April 30 holiday, summer promotion 2019, 10% discount for groups of more than 25 people, etc. In particular, businesses need to know how to take advantage of the mass media in promoting and introducing their products, especially online way.

It can be said that summer tourism has many advantages, especially sea, culture and cuisine tourism, contributing to the rapid growth of tourism in general. However, in order to make good use of the said advantages, businesses need to draw up a good strategy and carry out practical activities, of which the developing of positioning products plays a very important role in attracting visitors.

Not less important is marketing and promoting products so that the products and brands will become popular and get trust by clients. Especially, businesses need to be very quick in applying technology to business activities to be able to meet the increasing demands of visitors.

(Source: Giang Tu/VCCI)