Hanoi’s authorities have urged the municipal tourism sector to seek measures to attract more tourists to the capital, especially foreigners, in the coming time.

The number of overseas holiday-makers to Hanoi incessantly surged in recent years, bringing an increasing turnover for the sector. In the first half of 2014, Hanoi greeted 1.39 million foreign visitors, a 17.4 percent year-on-year rise. Of the total, the number of Chinese tourists to the city went up 30 percent compared to that in the same period last year.

Following China’s illegal placement of its oil rig in Vietnam’s waters in early May, Hanoi saw a remarkable decrease of overseas tourists to the city, particularly Chinese arrivals. In the face of this, the municipal authorities have asked the sector to direct its attention to other markets such as Japan, the Republic of Korea, Malaysia, Singapore and Russia.

The city plans to coordinate with the Vietnam Tourism Association to organise annual promotion activities in Japan, while working closely with Japan-based representative office of Vietnamese tour operators to help domestic travel agents easily access the potential market, which sees about 20 million tourists travelling abroad each year.

In additions, Hanoi’s travel agencies will actively participate in tourism fairs in other markets to introduce their services and products. They will also seek to promote the city’s image on well-known and prestigious tourism websites in the world such as Trip Advisor, Smart Travel Asia and Google.

Along with the above-mentioned efforts, the city also focuses on improving the quality of products and services, while expanding promotional programmes with the involvement of other areas related to tourism.

Hanoi will set up a tourism promotion plan for the 2015-2020 period, towards reaching a sustainable tourism growth in the future.-VNA