Thecapital city hosted a total 21.5 million visitors in the period, up 9.5 percentagainst the same period last year and 74.46 percent of this year’s plan. Therewere more than 16.8 million domestic holidaymakers, up 9.3 percentyear-on-year.
Tourismrevenue of the city reached 74.7 trillion VND (3.2 billion USD) in the ninemonths, up 30.9 percent and nearing 72 percent of the yearly plan.
Meanwhile,Hanoi’s hotels recorded an estimated occupancy rate of 70.5 percent, up 6.2percent, serving visitors mostly from the Republic of Korea, China and Japan.
Hanoihas been selected to compete for the title of World’s Leading City Destinationat the 2019 World Travel Awards (WTA).
Thedeadline for voting is October 20 at the WTA’s websitehttp://www.worldtravelawards.com/vote.
Thisyear, Hanoi was again listed in various tourism rankings. Japan’s All NipponAirways included the city among the 26 best Asian cities for a combination ofbusiness and leisure. The capital city was ranked fourth among the 25destinations in Asia and 15th among the 25 destinations in the world in 2019 byTripAdvisor. Most recently, it was named in the Cable News Network (CNN)'s listof the 17 best places in Asia.
Thecity is striving for 29 million tourists and 103 trillion VND in tourismrevenue in 2019.
In the list of thetop 100 city destinations 2018 released by Euromonitor International, Hanoiranked fourth among capital cities in Southeast Asia in terms of foreigntourist numbers, following Bangkok (23.69 million), Singapore (18.55 million)and Kuala Lumpur (13.43 million).
To bolster tourism,Hanoi considers improving the quality of destinations and developinginfrastructure and tourism products as important tasks.
The capital plans toattract investment to build shopping centres and accelerate major projects likethe Kim Quy culture, tourism and entertainment park in Dong Anh district, thehorse racing and entertainment complex in Soc Son district, and the HanoiMuseum. It will boost preservation projects at the Imperial Citadel of ThangLong, Bat Trang pottery village and Van Phuc silk village.
Efforts are alsobeing made to develop 20 – 30 high-quality tourist sites across the city.Additionally, the values of local cultural heritages and traditional villageswill be brought into play to turn them into attractive places of interest.
Hanoi is planning toaugment preparations for upcoming big sports events such as Formula One racingand the 31st Southeast Asian Games to attract visitors.
Additionally, itwill also make use of local culinary culture and promote MICE tourism as wellas tourism products based on the strengths of its localities.
The Vietnamesecapital is working to develop high-end accommodation facilities.
Director of theTourism Department Tran Duc Hai said the municipal People’s Committee hasapproved in principle 75 high-end accommodation projects with nearly 20,000rooms. As of June this year, there were 3,499 accommodation establishments with60,812 rooms in the city, including 67 hotels rated three to five stars with10,004 rooms and seven condotel complexes rated four to five stars with 1,349rooms.
Cooperation intourism development is also a key task of the sector, he said, noting that hisdepartment is carrying out the promotion cooperation programme for 2019-2024with TV channel CNN International.
It will also takepart in meetings of the Council for Promotion of Tourism in Asia andcooperation activities of the Tourism Promotion Organisation for Asian-PacificCities.
Coordination withairlines, domestic and foreign media, embassies, international organisationsand travel companies will be strengthened to hold trips for businesses andreporters from key markets, according to the Tourism Department./.