The Vietnam Tourism Yellow Page is a platform to connect service providers and customers. (Photo: screenshots)Hanoi (VNA) - Travel companies and tourism management agencies have pursued their own management solutions, including speeding up application of digital technology to save themselves amid difficulties caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Digital transformation has been proven to be an inevitable trend for all sectors if they want to survive and develop in the fourth industrial revolution.
In the previous years, only travel businesses and localities with sharp and flexible thinking and strong financial potential paid attention to promoting digital transformation. But now the COVID-19 crisis has forced businesses in general and tourism companies in particular to choose digital transformation or stopping operations.
The COVID-19 pandemic has ravaged the world for over a year. The global economy is in its worst recession ever.
However, looking at it from another perspective, the pandemic is not merely a "destructor", but it forces travel companies to make changes, adjustments, promote digital transformation and restructure their operations to effectively respond to challenges caused by the crisis.
The fourth wave of COVID-19 infections, which started on April 27, is said to be a bomb hitting travel businesses, which are struggling to maintain their operations.
After three wave of COVID-19 outbreaks since early 2020, travel companies are operating with uncertainties. Many businesses have even had to reduce their workforce or stop operations entirely.
Vietnamese travel businesses are making efforts to accelerate digital transformation and apply technologies to travel management and business activities. (Illustrative image – Photo: VietnamPlus)
Director of AZA Travel Company Nguyen Tien Dat, one of dynamic CEOs operating in the tourism industry, said he has never lost faith in the recovery of the green economy.
Right after the third COVID-19 outbreak in Vietnam, Dat and his colleagues opened PRATO practical tourism training centre in order to share their professional experience and lessons in tourism management and development.
Free training courses of the centre have been organised virtually due to the fourth wave of COVID-19 infections.
Chairman of Lux Group Pham Ha, who owns a luxury resort service ecosystem, said that his firm has been digitized with standard processes being established.
Since 2004, Lux Group has applied information technologies and developed its business on digital and e-commerce platforms. Illustrative image (Photo: Contributor/VietnamPlus)Thanks to virtual reality technologies, Lux Group can easily analyze markets and tourists' preferences, thus developing a “big data” system about the demand of foreign travel agencies.
Cloud computing technology will accompany Vietnam's tourism in the future, so travel firms should promote digital transformation as soon as possible, Ha stressed.
Not only businesses, tourism management agencies and localities have also paid attention to making changes in this difficult time.
For example, Hanoi has applied digital solutions to attract visitors. The Thang Long-Hanoi Heritage Conservation Centre introduced a virtual exhibition, while Hoa Lo Prison historical relic site launched an exclusive radio channel on Spotify to help audiences learn more about history in an easier and more interesting way.
Amidst the difficult situation, the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, the Vietnam National Administration of Tourism (VNAT), and VNAT’s Tourist Information Centre, developed and put useful technological products into operation in order to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic and ensure safety for visitors.
According to Deputy Managing Director of the Tourism Information Centre Hoang Quoc Hoa, the centre has developed a database related to international travel agencies, guides, accommodation establishments, and tourist sites, and a tourism statistical data system.
The multi-utility integration platform “Du lich Viet Nam an toan” (Vietnam's safe tourism) serves as a tourism digital map, which provides users with a digital map. (Photo: VNA)The multi-utility integration platform “Du lich Viet Nam an toan” (Vietnam's safe tourism) serves as a tourism digital map, which provides users with a digital map containing information on restaurants, hotels, apartments, entertainment places, transport providers, hospitals and pharmacies. It allows users to fill in health declarations without switching to another platform.
Especially, tourism communication work on digital platforms is increasingly being promoted with projects such as Wonders of Vietnam of Google Arts & Culture, the tourism promotion campaign "Vietnam: Di de Yeu!" (Vietnam: Travel to Love) on YouTube, and the Vietnam Tourism Yellow Page.
To prepare for a project to pilot "vaccine passports" for international visitors to a number of tourism centres in the country, the Tourist Information Centre has developed a digital vaccine certification system at https://travelpass.tourism.vn, which will be piloted to welcome back international arrivals and ensure safe travel when tourist activities are resumed./.
