The Japanese companies plan to research a number of destinations thatare popular with Japanese visitors, such as Hanoi, Quang Ninh, Hue,Da Nang, Quang Nam and Ho Chi Minh City to kick start tourist packagesto Vietnam after a period of decline due to the global economic crisis.
Minister of Culture, Sports and Tourism Hoang Tuan Anh and leaders ofthe VNAT will meet with representatives of the Japanese Travel AgentsAssociation (JATA ) and the Japanese travel agents to inform them aboutpromotional programmes in Vietnam in October to attract more visitorsfrom this key market.
Nguyen Van Tran, General Director of APEX, a Japanese-Vietnamese jointventure company, the survey trips organiser, said that they wereconfident of luring more Japanese tourists to Vietnam . APEX hasalready 1,000 Japanese visitors booked for tours from now untilDecember.
In 2008, the VNAT and the JATA signed an agreement to boost tourismcooperation between the two countries, aiming to raise the number ofJapanese visitors coming to Vietnam from over 400,000 in 2007 to600,000 by 2010.
However, the number of Japanese visitors visiting Vietnam has fallensince 2008 due to the global economic crisis, with only around 229,000making the trips in the first eight months of this year, a decrease of11.4 percent when compared to the same period last year.
JATA agreed to list Vietnam as one of the top ten destinations in its“Visit the World Campaign”, which aims to increase the number ofJapanese tourists going abroad to 20 million by 2010. Otherdestinations on the list are Guam, Hawaii, the Republic of Korea,Hong Kong and France./.