Opportunities and challenges for Vietnam’s tourism digital transformation

Editor’s Word: As a serious occasion of the tourism business, the Vietnam Tourism Conference 2021 was profitable with many opinions exchanged and assessed the impression of the Covid-19 epidemic on the tourism business, alternatives and challenges for tourism. Vietnam tourism within the “post-Covid” interval.

Taking place in 1 day, along with the alternate of concepts and discussions on the Conference, there are additionally many priceless opinions and views acquired by many consultants, scientists, researchers, managers, associations. associations, tourism companies despatched to.

In the next, we want to introduce to readers the subject “Vietnam’s tourism recovery and development” is a group of statements, discussions, articles within the convention paperwork by the content material editors of the group. The National Assembly’s Committee on Culture and Education shall coordinate with the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism to implement it.

Here is the primary a part of the article “ORIENTATIONS AND DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION SOLUTIONS FOR TOURISM ACTIVITIES” belong to Mr. Nguyen Huy Dung – Deputy Minister of Information and Communications about Opportunities and challenges for digital transformation of tourism in Vietnam.

ORIENTATIONS AND DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION SOLUTIONS FOR TOURISM ACTIVITIES

Nguyen Huy Dung – Deputy Minister of Information and Communication

SummaryThe Resolution of the thirteenth National Party Congress recognized one of many key duties as “implementing the national digital transformation, developing the digital economy, and improving productivity, quality and efficiency. , the competitiveness of the economy”. Resolution No. 52-NQ/TW dated September 27, 2019 of the Politburo on a number of guidelines and policies to actively participate in the fourth industrial revolution has identified digital tourism development policy as a in priority policies and technologies. Digital transformation is the process of total and comprehensive change of individuals and organizations in the way of living, working and production methods based on digital technologies. In tourism, digital transformation is changing the way travel is done, the way tourism is done, the way travel is done, and the way tourism is managed through data and digital technology. The presentation report presents some world experiences in tourism digital transformation and suggests orientations and digital transformation solutions for Vietnam’s tourism industry.

Key word: Digital transformation, travel, digital platform, smart travel, virtual reality, augmented reality, online travel agency, travel exchange.

QUESTION

Tourism is one of the fastest growing economic sectors in the world. Tourism is also an industry that earns foreign exchange without exporting the nation’s wealth or goods.

According to Digital Transformation initiatives on the World Economic Forum, Digital Transformation in tourism is expected to contribute up to 305 billion USD in profits by 2025. Digital transformation will provide application tools and platforms necessary technology to optimally support the closer approach to smart tourism, increase revenue and profit for the industry while ensuring sustainable development.

1. The role of tourism in economic development

Tourism, which accounted for more than 10% of global GDP in 2019 and was worth nearly $9 trillion, is the second fastest growing industry in terms of FDI attraction and the second largest job creator. According to the United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO), the number of international tourists worldwide reached 1.5 billion in 2019, an increase of 4% compared to 2018 and the tourism industry has experienced growth. continuously for the past 8 years. Digital tourism sales increased 11.7% in 2016 to nearly 613 billion USD and is estimated to reach 855 billion USD by 2021.

In Vietnam, in the period 2015-2019, Vietnam’s tourism has developed a breakthrough: the number of international visitors has increased 2.3 times (from 7.9 million to 18 million), achieving an average growth of 22.7%/year. five. This is a very high growth rate compared to the average growth rate of 7.6%/year in the period 2011-2015 and is the highest in the world according to the annual reports of the United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO). UNWTO); The number of domestic tourists has increased nearly 1.5 times (from 57 million to 85 million), an average increase of 10.5%/year; Total

tourism revenue increased 2.1 times (from 355 trillion VND to 755 trillion VND); The direct contribution of tourism accounts for an increasing proportion of the gross domestic product (GDP): 6.3% in 2015 and 9.2% in 2019; In the period 2015-2019, Vietnam’s tourism competitiveness increased by 12 places, from 75/141 economies in 2015 to 67/136 in 2017 and 63/140 in 2019.

However, in 2020 – 2021, the COVID-19 epidemic has had a strong impact on the growth of Vietnam’s tourism industry, the number of international visitors in 2020 decreased by nearly 80% compared to 2019; domestic tourists also decreased by nearly 50%; about 40-60% of workers in the tourism industry lost their jobs or cut their working days; Total tourism revenue of the whole country lost up to 530 trillion VND (equivalent to 23 billion USD), which is about 61% compared to 2019. In 2021, Vietnam will not welcome international tourists, only allowing entry. for experts and employees working at project enterprises, in the first 10 months of 2021, there were 125.1 thousand turns of people, down 96.7% over the same period last year. Domestic tourism is also almost “frozen” as the whole country constantly has to deal with outbreaks, especially the one from July 2021.

2. The application of information technology in tourism activities in Vietnam

a) IT application in service of state management of tourism – IT application in tourism communication: + Website https://vietnamtourism.gov.vn/; + Youtube channel https://www.youtube.com/c/vietnamtourismmedia; + Social network https://www.facebook.com/vnattitc

+ Zalo: https://zalo.me/tongcucdulich

+ Smart tourism portal – VTV travel (dulich.vtv.vn).

+TikTok: #HelloVietnam is part of activities in a series of global tourism promotion campaigns initiated by TikTok called #TikTokTravel.

– Application in management and administration: http://dash.vietnamtourism.gov.vn/; 100% of tourism management agencies from the central to local levels of Vietnam have a tourism website.

– Application in tourism statistics: http://thongke.tourism.vn/

– Applications enhance utility and experience:

+ Vietnamese card http://thedulich.gov.vn/ (each Vietnamese person is granted 1 Vietnamese card (national card) for life-long use in the fields of tourism, healthcare, commerce, transportation, education…);

+ App “Safe tourism in Vietnam”;

+ Webiste introduces digital platforms in tourism https://nentangso. vietnamtourism.gov.vn/

– Vietnam tourism database: http://csdl.vietnamtourism.gov.vn/.

b) IT application in tourism enterprises

– Most tourism businesses, especially tour operators and star-rated hotel businesses in Vietnam, have their own websites.

Most business activities are carried out online: marketing, product promotion; market expansion research; customer care consultant; carry out purchase – sale, payment transactions… The leading tourism enterprises in Vietnam are promoting the application of modern technology in the tourism business such as Viettravel, Saigontourist, Thien Minh Group, Hanoitourist, and Benthanhtourist. ..

– Currently, in Vietnam, there are more than 10 travel exchanges (Yeudulich.com1, Tripi.vn, gotadi.vn, ivivu.com, welcome.vn, datphong24h.vn, travel.com.vn, dulichviet.com .vn, mytour.vn, Fiditour.com, Benthanhtourist.com, datviettour.com, adayroi.com, travelmart.vn,…) account for about 20% of service transactions, the rest is done by foreign electronic exchanges presently. These are important highlights of Vietnamese tourism businesses in terms of accessibility and adaptation to smart tourism.

3. Opportunities and challenges for Vietnam’s tourism digital transformation

a) Opportunity

– Vietnam’s digital technology and telecommunications infrastructure has developed at the same level as the world’s. According to WeAreSocial (wearesocial.com) statistics in 2018, there are 4.02 billion Internet users worldwide (accounting for 53%), nearly 3.2 billion social network users, more than 5.1 billion mobile phone users mobile phones (accounting for 68%) in which mainly smartphones have Internet connection and use. In Vietnam with nearly 100 million people, there are 64 million Internet users (accounting for 67% of the population), 55 million social network users (accounting for 57%), more than 70 million mobile phone users (accounting for 73 percent of the population). %). This shows that the percentage of people using the Internet and smart devices in the world and in Vietnam is very large. This is a big premise for Vietnam to develop smart tourism.

– The tourism industry in the world and Vietnam is leading the trend to take advantage of the achievements of Industry 4.0 in almost all stages and processes of providing services to tourists, at accommodation establishments and travel agencies. , tourist service establishments, tourist destinations.

– The movement of entrepreneurship and innovation based on new technology is developing strongly in Vietnam

b) Challenging

– Thinking and awareness towards the inevitable development trend of smart tourism, tourism digital transformation is not high.

– There has not been a close and synchronous connection on the digital platform between stakeholders in the tourism industry.

– Most small and medium-sized tourism enterprises have restricted assets. In the principle fields of tourism enterprise similar to: travel, lodging, tourism transport, eating, leisure, procuring, … the flexibility…