Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh speaks at the conference. (Photo: VNA)The event, linked with sites in all the 63centrally-run cities and provinces, brought together representatives fromministries, agencies, localities, and travel organisations, associations andfirms, experts and researchers.
In his opening remarks, Chinh said the conference isthe third of its kind to implement the Politburo’s Resolution No. 08-NQ/TW,dated January 16, 2017, on turning tourism into an economic spearhead.
He attributed the great efforts by the tourismsector, under the Party’s leadership and the State’s management and with theengagement of the entire political system and the support of the businesscommunity and the public, to domestic tourism recovery.
The leader also noted challenges to the sector,especially in attracting foreign visitors, as many countries and major,traditional markets and partners of Vietnam have still maintained immigrationrestrictions due to complex COVID-19 pandemic developments, and negativeimpacts of the Russia-Ukraine conflict.
According to the PM, such immigration barriers are expectedto be removed this year, which will generate both opportunities and challengesto Vietnamese tourism, including competition pressure.
Turning tourism into an economic spread requiressolutions to the issues, both short and long terms, Chinh emphasised.
He urged the participants to seek solutions to accelerate tourism development in the time ahead, firstly to fulfill the target ofwelcoming 110 million visitors this year, including 8 million foreigners, and earning650 trillion VND (27.65 billion USD) from the industry.
Policies on infrastructure development, tourismpromotion, environmental protection, cultural development in combination withtourism development and resources mobilisation, visa, labour and technologyshould be proposed on this occasion to create breakthroughs in the sector, hesaid.
Developing tourism in a rapid and sustainable way is the responsibilityof the entire political system, the Government, ministries, agencies,localities, people and businesses, not a single individual, the leadernoted.
Statistics by the Ministry of Culture, Sportsand Tourism showed that the number of international visitors to Vietnam jumped to18 million in 2019 from only 7.9 million in 2015.
Vietnam's average annual growth of 22.7% is among thehighest in the world, according to the World Travel Organisation.
The country’s tourism has stepped up eight places on the2021 Tourism and Travel Development Index (TTDI) to the 52nd ascompared with that in 2019, said the World Economic Forum (WEF) Report.
With six out of the17 pillar indexes ranked among the top in theworld, Vietnam's tourism ranks among the top three fastest growing countries.
Since the border reopening on March 15, 2022, thesector has been recovering, especially domestic tourism.
Last year, the country served 101.3 million domesticvisitors and 3.5 million foreign tourists, and raked in 495 trillion VND fromthe industry, up more than 23% from the set target, and equivalent to 66% ofthe 2019 figure./.
VNA
