Published:  10:33 Friday - January 11, 2013

Travel firms keep doubtful with the figures of foreign and domestic travelers to Vietnam in 2012, because they are “abnormally high” in the context of the global economic crisis.

The Vietnam National Administration of Tourism (VNAT) has declared a successful year 2012 for the tourism industry with 6.7 million inbound tourists, 32 million domestic travelers and the total revenue of VND160 trillion dong. The achievements have far exceeded the targets set earlier this year.

Dai doan ket newspaper has cited a report of VNAT as reporting that the number of foreign travelers to Vietnam increased by 11 percent in 2012, especially from Russia (71.5 percent), Finland (43 percent), South Korea (31 percent), Malaysia (28 percent) and Laos (27 percent). The number of domestic travelers also increased by 8.3 percent, thus helping increase the total revenue from tourism activities to 23 percent.

The figures provided by the General Statistics Office show a little difference, with the number of travelers increasing by 9.5 percent only. However, this still showed that Vietnam received a record high number of foreign travelers to the country in 2012.

USTOA, the US tourism association, has also reported that Vietnam is the second choice among the newly emerging destinations for international tourists, which showed the strong potentials of the Vietnam’s tourism industry.

Meanwhile, travel firms, which all affirmed that they have experienced a very difficult year, said that the high figures prove to be unreliable.

Thanh nien, which conducted a survey on 20 international travel firms, has found out that the number of clients of the travel firms decreased sharply in 2012, while the profit per traveler also dropped dramatically. The travel firms believe that the figures released by VNAT were “fabricated.”

In Hanoi, Net dep Dong Duong (Indochina charm) travel firm, has relocated from the head office on an advantageous position in the central area to another office building, which has the premises rent lower by one third, in order to stop loss. 30 percent of the firm’s staff has been laid off, while the firm is reconsidering the plan to attend a foreign trade fair.

The manager said that the firm has to cut down expenses after the number of German and French tourists, who usually book 12-14 day tours and stay at 3-4 star hotels, has decreased dramatically, thus leading to the sharp fall of 25 percent in the number of foreign travelers in 2012.

Prior to that, the travel firm witnessed the 20 percent decline in the number of tourists in 2011.

Nguyen Kien Cuong, Director of Tuan Minh Trade and Tourism Company, which specializes in carrying European and Japanese travelers, complained that the number of orders from 10 international travel firms in the high season in October 2012 - April 2013 is estimated to decrease by 40 percent.

According to Dr. Pham Trung Luong from the Tourism Development Institute, the numbers of foreigners entering Vietnam have been provided by the authorities at border gates, while it is very difficult to tell the difference between the people entering Vietnam to travel, or for other purposes.

Especially, the travelers going to Vietnam to visit their relatives have also been counted as tourists. However, in fact, not all of them spend money on tourism.

In some cases, the estimated incomes from foreign travelers have been counted twice. If foreign travelers come to Vietnam by air, VNAT would estimate the income to receive from the travelers, which include transport, trade, electricity and water. Meanwhile, the transport industry also enters into accounts the receipts from the travelers for transport services.

Vietnamnet