Tourists go kayaking on Ha Long Bay in the northern province of Quang Ninh province. (Photo: quangninh.vn) Hanoi (VNA) – Vietnam welcomednearly 6.6 million international visitors in the first seven months of thisyear, accounting for 83% of the yearly target, according to V💞ietnam NationalAuthority of Tourism (VNAT).
During the period, the industry also served 76.5 milliondomestic tourists. Total revenues from tourism reached 416.6 trillion VND (17.58billion USD).July alone saw over 1 million foreign arrivals, 6.5% higher than that of the previous month.
According to VNAT, the tourism seℱctor e🅷xpects to soon reach its yearly target as the second half of the year is usually the peaktime for international visitors.
Tourists visit Thien Mu pagoda in central city of Hue. (Photo: VNA) The RoK remained the largest source market of Vietnamtourism in the first seven months of this year with 1.9 million arrivals, accounting for one-third of total international visitors to Vietnam.It was followed by China and the US.
Among the top ten source markets of Vietnam tourism, four are in Northeast Asia - the RoK, China, Taiwan (China), and Japan, and threein Southeast Asia - Thailand, Malaysia, and Cambodia. Australia and Indiaranked ninth and tenth. In Europe, the UK, France, and Germany were the three biggest source markets.
Many main source markets for tourists in Vietnam saw growth in July, such as Taiwan (31.3%), Japan (15%), China (14%), the US (7%) and the RoK (6%).
According to the World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO), global tourist arrivals will recover to pre-COVID-19 levels by 2024 at the earliest. Theincreasing number of tourists, together with changes in consumption trends,tourism markets and digital technology, poses significant challenges to tourism humanresources in the new situation.
According to VNAT, with the current growth rate, thecountry’s tourism industry needs 40,000 new employees each year while 25,000employees need to be retrained. Meanwhile, local schools only train 20,000students yearly. The number of professionally trained tourism workers accountsfor only 43% of the total workforce in the industry and nearly half of them donot know foreign languages.
In addition, the quality and productivity of Vietnamese workers in the tourism andhotel industries remain low. Vietna♉mese tourism workers now have to competewith guest workers from the Philippines, Thailand, Indonesia, and Singapore,ওthus improving the quality of human resources is a must for Vietnam in thecoming time./.
