Japanese, South Korean tourists abandoning Vietnam

17:06' 18/04/2008 (GMT+7)
VietNamNet Bridge – The number of tourists from Japan and South Korea is now on the decrease. South Korea, traditionally the second biggest inbound tourism market for Vietnam, has fallen to 5th position, according to the Vietnam National Administration of Tourism (VNAT).
1.29mil international tourists came to Vietnam in Q1
VNAT has released statistics showing that the number of Japanese travellers decreased by 7% in the first three months of the year, while the number of South Korean travellers decreased by 0.8%.
Japan and South Korea have been the two leading inbound tourism markets for Vietnam.
The noteworthy thing is that while the number of tourists from the two leading markets decreased, other markets witnessed growth in the first quarter of the year. The number of Chinese tourists coming to Vietnam, for example, rose by 60% in the first quarter compared to the same period of 2007.
In 2007, Vietnam received 450,000 South Korean tourists and 380,000 Japanese tourists.
Explaining the decrease, Vu The Binh, Director of the Travel Department under VNAT, said that it was because of the lack of Vietnamese tour guides. With such a high number of South Korean tourists, Vietnam needs to have 800-1,000 tour guides, while in fact it has 50 Korean-speaking tour guides only.
Vietnamese laws do not allow foreign tour guides to practice in Vietnam, while it requires a big number of tour guides to meet the demand.
VNAT has taken a lot of inspection tours to illegal representative offices of travel firms in Hanoi and HCM City in the last time, and expelled some 40 South Korean tour guides from Vietnam. As a result, the number of South Korean tourists coming to Vietnam has decreased.
Acting General Director of VNAT Nguyen Quoc Ky said that South Korean travel firms have been doing all the work to bring South Korean tourists to Vietnam in the last two years, while Vietnamese travel firms only play an unimportant role in tour arrangements.
In order to attract more South Korean tourists, Ky thinks that it is necessary to sign a state-level agreement between Vietnam and South Korea which will provide a legal framework for South Korean travel firms and tour guides. Once the agreement is inked, the scrambling for clients in Vietnam will stop
Regarding Japan’s market, Ky said that Japanese tourists are now heading to new destinations, especially ones in Central Asia (countries which belonged to the Russian Federation and Mongolia).
“In order to bring them back to Vietnam, the country needs to renovate tourism products and change its tourism promotion methods,” Ky said.
According to VNAT, 1.29mil international tourists came to Vietnam in Q1, an increase of 16% over the same period of last year.