Overview of the meeting (Photo: TITC)

VNAT’s Chairman Nguyen Trung Khanh stated the results of Vietnam tourism in recent years.

In 2019, Vietnam welcomed over 18 million international visitor arrivals, serving 85 million domestic visitor trips, said VNAT’s Chairman Nguyen Trung Khanh; total tourist receipts reached 755 trillion VND, contributing to the country's GDP of about 9.2%. In addition, the growth rate of international tourists in the period 2015 - 2019 reached 22.8%. As a result, Vietnam has been evaluated by the World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) as one of the 10 countries with the fastest tourism growth rate at this time.

Post the Covid-19, the Government was allowed to restore all the tourism activities from 15th March 2022. Vietnam is one of the countries that opened tourism the earliest and most favourable in the ASEAN region and the world. The Government also pays special attention to removing difficulties and obstacles so that Vietnamese tourism can speed up recovery and take off post the pandemic. Thanks to that, in 2022 Vietnam welcomed nearly 3.7 million international visitor arrivals; serving over 101 million domestic visitor trips, total tourist receipts reached about 495 trillion VND. In 2023, Vietnam tourism has a strong acceleration. In the first 8 months of the year, Vietnam welcomed about 7.8 million international visitor arrivals, reaching 98% of the 2023 plan and serving 86 million domestic visitor trips.

VNAT’s Chairman Nguyen Trung Khanh having a meeting with Mr. A. Saj U. Mendis, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Sri Lanka in Vietnam (Photo: TITC)

In addition, the Government also oriented tourism to be the country's key economic sector when issuing many strategies, action plans, and policies to develop Vietnam tourism. Vietnam focuses on developing 4 main product lines based on advantages, potentials, natural and cultural resources including: sea and island tourism, cultural tourism, eco-tourism, and urban tourism. Post Covid-19, VNAT has encouraged localities and businesses to develop new tourism product lines to meet the demands of tourists such as: wellness tourism, tourism associated with nature, sports tourism (including golf tourism), culinary tourism.

Vietnam tourism has been evaluated and ranked high in Asia and the world by international organisations. In particular, on 6th September, the 30th World Travel Awards Asia and Oceania Ceremony crowned Vietnam in 54 award categories in Asia 2023 in terms of destinations, tourism management agencies, travel businesses, hotels, airlines…

Vietnam is trying to diversify products and services to welcome international tourists during peak times from October. Therefore, VNAT hopes to cooperate with tourism partners from Sri Lanka to increase visitor exchange between the two sides. However, there are some difficulties and limitations between Vietnam and Sri Lanka such as no direct flights and lack of information exchange on tourism. VNAT’s Chairman Nguyen Trung Khanh suggested the Sri Lankan Ambassador to be a bridge between the two countries' national tourism agencies, enhancing regular exchange of information about visitors and market needs, opening up more specific opportunities for cooperation. Besides, encouraging tourism businesses, tour operators, and accommodation establishments in Sri Lanka to exchange information and provide orientation for Vietnamese businesses to work with Sri Lankan businesses to have a tourism promotion plan suitable to the demands of both sides' tourist markets. Especially, focus on developing spiritual tourism products since the two countries share a major religion, Buddhism. Sri Lanka is one of the Buddhist pilgrimage destinations, so the two sides can build a spiritual tourism programme and link with a third country, India, to form a three-country religious tour package.

VNAT’s Chairman Nguyen Trung Khanh gifting souvenir to Mr. A. Saj U. Mendis, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Sri Lanka in Vietnam (Photo: TITC)

Mr. A. Saj U. Mendis, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Sri Lanka in Vietnam said, Sri Lanka is one of the attractive destinations, with beautiful tourist landscapes, along with a rich flora and fauna ecosystem. Recently, this country has also been voted and highly appreciated for tourism by many prestigious and famous international magazines such as Lonely Planet and CNN. Before the Covid-19 outbreak, this place was one of the most attractive tourist destinations in the world, welcoming 2.5 million international visitor arrivals in 2018. Sri Lanka also aims to welcome 5 million to 6 million international tourist arrivals by 2028.

Mr. A. Saj U. Mendis highly appreciates that Vietnam tourism has experienced remarkable growth in recent times, reflected in the number of international tourists coming to Vietnam. In the pre-pandemic period, Sri Lankan tourists to Vietnam reached 15,000 to 16,000 arrivals. In the opposite direction, the number of Vietnamese tourists to Sri Lanka only stopped at about 3,000 arrivals. Expressing agreement with the opinions of VNAT’s Chairman Nguyen Trung Khanh on difficulties, limitations and solutions to promote tourist travel between each other, Ambassador A. Saj U. Mendis suggested that, the two countries can operate flights from Ha Noi and Ho Chi Minh City to Mumbai, New Delhi (India), then to Sri Lanka. From there, combine spiritual tours and pilgrimage tours between the 3 countries.

Accordingly, from 15th August 2023, Vietnam officially issues electronic visas to citizens of all countries and territories, including Sri Lanka. This will certainly be an opportunity for the two countries to strengthen links and cooperation in tourism as well as in other fields. Mr. A. Saj U. Mendis hopes that Sri Lanka and Vietnam will continue to establish closer and closer diplomatic relations with each other, especially in the field of tourism to enhance the image and tourism brand of the two countries in the international market.

VNAT’s Chairman Nguyen Trung Khanh added,  in addition to developing the potential of spiritual tourism, Sri Lanka also needs to develop its strength products to meet Vietnamese demands. Combining a three-country tour of Vietnam - India - Sri Lanka will be a great advantage because airlines have operated many routes between India and Vietnam, so it can be conveniently combined to Sri Lanka. He will have meetings with airlines to discuss connecting more flights to bring tourists from Vietnam to Sri Lanka and vice versa. The two sides will continue to discuss tourism cooperation, especially the organisation of programmes and activities to introduce and widely promote the tourism image of the two countries so that units and businesses have opportunities to meet, share, exchange information and experiences, and cooperate in building tours suitable to the demands of tourists.

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