A French family visits a farm in Hoi An. Farm lifestyle experiences are an option for tourists after an Old Quarter visit.(Photo: VNA) A recent survey from Quang Nam’s provincial tourism association unveiled that95% of 200 tourism businesses called for access to bank loans and preferredrates, eased debt payments, tax reductions, human resources and infrastructureinvestment.
Huynh Thi Minh from the Hoi An tourism human resources club said 65 proposalsfrom hotel owners, travel agencies and tourism service suppliers focused onfinancial assistance, market promotions, and refreshing Hoi An's tourism brand.
“Local businesses proposed refreshing solutions for Hoi An including more newdestinations and shopping areas outside of the Old Quarter and boosting the useof environment-friendly transport vehicles,” Minh said. “They also called for alimit on commercialising and harassing tourists in the Old Quarter, whilepromoting the traditional lifestyle of local people in Hoi An, and morepedestrian streets.”
It needs destinations for tourists from Asia, the US and Australia as well asthe emerging markets of India, the Republic of Korea and France, she added.
Nguyen Thi Minh Phuong from the Quang Nam provincial tourism department said 65%of tourism services had resumed, but only 56,000 foreign tourists out of 1.5million had visited the province in the first half of 2022.
Hoi An was seen as a favourite destination in Vietnam when theUNESCO-recognised world heritage site hosted 60% of total visitors (7 millionin 2019) in Quang Nam province, she said.
Nguyen Son Thuy, general secretary of the Quang Nam Tourism Association, saidlocal businesses had not yet fully recovered from the COVID-19 ‘shock’.
“Almost all travel businesses approached banks to help them ease pre-COVID-19debt, while the workforce found new jobs in factories or home businesses. 90%of tourism enterprises in Hoi An have been struggling for survival,” Thuy said.
He said Vietnam had hosted a record 18 million international tourists in 2019,of which 67% were from China and the RoK, but the number of tourists fromthese two major markets had not yet recovered due to pandemic lockdownpolicies.
“The Chinese market has not yet fully opened, and only individual tours werebooked from the RoK. Resorts and hotels in Vietnam have hosted only a sixth ofthe previous number of tourists in 2019,” he explained. “We should arrangespecific tour services and destinations for Indian tourists. Hoi An could offervarious options for tourists from India and the RoK.”
Pham Chuong Hoang, an expert from the national economics university, said goodproducts, high-quality human resources, digital transformation, and tourismpromotions were crucial proposals from local tourism businesses that would helpthem be ‘healthy’ again from a two-year pandemic illness.
“There should be visa extensions from one month to six months for longer stays,home-stay service promotion, and seeking more new markets,” Hoang said.
“The domestic market was seen as a solution for the post COVID-19 tourismrecovery plan, but high season time (summertime) is over and the market in AsiaPacific declined 70%,” he said. “Tourism in Hoi An and Quang Nam has beenrefreshing its products by promoting ‘green’ tourism, ‘safe’,environment-friendly tour services. The COVID-19 damage also has forced Hoi Antourism restructuring and diversifying.”
Tran Quoc Quan from the Quang Nam Provincial department of labour, invalid andsocial affairs said nearly 1 million labourers in the province were infectedwith COVID-19 in 2020-2021, of which 30,000 were self-employed persons and tourismworkers in Hoi An.
Reductions of insurance fees and allowances had been provided to thousands ofbusinesses and unemployed workers in the tourism sector, he added.
Hoi An and My Son Sanctuary – two UNESCO World Heritage sites – and the worldbiosphere reserve of the Hoi An-Cham Islands in Quang Nam province are amongthe favourite destinations of foreign tourists in Vietnam along with ThuaThien-Hue, Quang Binh, Da Nang, and Phu Quoc island in Kien Giang province./.
VNA
