Hanoi (VNA) - Vietnam is becoming a popular destination for providers of luxurious tourist services for the superrich. But these aspirations as a luxury destination need to be met with more work on the industry toward a professional provision of tourism services.
In the post-pandemic era, the number of newly registered firms and those returning to tourism services is increasing rapidly. It is worthy of note that after a period of stagnation, the market of foreign visitors has shown optimistic signs with statistics showing relatively rapid recovery. Vietnam remains in the top destinations with the highest growth pace in the world, becoming a destination of the superrich in the process, while the domestic tourism is on the rise.
Luxurious destination
Information from the Vietnam National Administration of Tourism said in the first seven months of this year, Vietnam welcomed 954,000 foreign arrivals. The figures represent nearly nine times the statistics of the corresponding period of a year earlier and equal to the average growth of 62% each month in the past seven months.
Among the top 10 markets of foreign visitors to Vietnam, nine are in Asia and the Pacific such as Cambodia, Singapore, Thailand, and Malaysia.
The Republic of Korea is Vietnam’s biggest market with 196,200 arrivals, marking an increase of 903.7% over the same period, followed by the US with 102,900. Although the number of arrivals from Europe is still small, the growth pace is very high, topped by the UK which is followed by France and Germany.
It is of special note that so far this year, Vietnam always remains in the group of the destinations with the highest growth rates, from 50% to 70%. The number of searches from foreign markets on Vietnam tourism in July increased by more than 1,200% over the same period of 2021 (mostly from the US, Australia, Singapore, India, Japan, the Republic of Korea, the UK, Malaysia, Germany and Thailand).
Vietnam has become a destination of the world’s golfing tourism (Photo: VNA) A special point is that Vietnam is becoming a destination prioritised by professional providers of the world’s luxurious tourist services, including the TCS. Two out of its nine tours to start next year by the company include destinations in Vietnam and are among the most expensive.
As for luxurious tours by charter flights (starting from the US), golfing tours around the world with luxurious services, customers will have to spend 147,000 USD each, and be taken to the best golf courses in the world in the US, Australia, Malaysia and Vietnam (with calls at Hoi An and Da Nang), Oman, Rwanda and Morocco.
Among the nine tours to be organised by the TCS World Travel, the cheapest will cost each tourists 49,950 USD.
Year-end acceleration plan
Reality has shown that tourism is “warming” along with the recovery of the economy. In the first half of this year, the Vietnam National Administration of Tourism has issued licenses for 312 new international travel firms, or 286 more than the figure in 2021. At present, the country counts 2,415 firms in international tourism. Along with the coming into being of new firms, the reopening of tourism has created jobs for millions of workers.
Foreign tourists coming back to Vietnam (Photo: VNA) As for the goal of welcoming 65 million visitors (including 60 million domestic ones) in 2022, Deputy Director General of the administration Pham Van Thuy said by July 2022, Vietnam had served about 71.8 million domestic tourists, surpassing the goal, while the number of foreign arrivals had neared 1 million.
The official also stressed that the peak of foreign arrivals often comes from September to April. However, to reach the target of the 5 million arrivals, it depends on various factors, especially the pandemic developments. Meanwhile, many of Vietnam’s key markets remain shut, especially China. That is why, to realise the goal, the tourism industry will, for the time to come, have to join hands with partners and Vietnamese representative offices in foreign countries and overseas Vietnamese cultural centres in the popularisation and promotion work./.
Vietnam’s tourism turning to a bright page following the pandemic (Photo: VNA) 
