Foreign arrivals up slightly

Hanoi (VNA)- International arrivals into Vietnam increased 0.6 percent year on
year to 4.3 million in 2008, reported the General Statistics Department.

The figure, however, represented the industry's failure to meet its yearly target
set at between 4.8 and 5 million arrivals.

December, which is considered the heyday of the hospitality industry for Christmas
holidays, saw a slowdown the influx of foreign tourists as compared to the
previous year.

Major downturns were seen at the Japanese, the Republic of Korea and Taiwanese
markets while Singaporeans, Chinese and Thais made slight increases of 14.6
percent, 13.1 percent and 9.6 percent, respectively, over the previous year.

The Vietnam National Administration of Tourism (VNAT) largely blamed global
economic crisis for the industry's slow growth besides domestic economic
volatility and problems on infrastructure, service quality and poor human
resources.

"These problems have to some extents made Vietnam less attractive," admitted
VNAT.

To solve the problems, the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism promised of
assistance to localities in improving their products and diversifying services
with the focus on coastal and islands advantages.

The VNAT will join the efforts by establishing links between the civil air
industry and travel agents to further tap markets of great potential such as the
RoK, Japan , China and the US .

The industry has planned to open more regional coastal and island tours of
Cambodia , Thailand , China and Singapore and launch promotion campaigns
abroad.

As part of the efforts, Hanoi will host the ASEAN Tourist Forum (ATF)-2009
from January 5-12, which is expected to recover the ailing regional tourism
industry from global economic downturns.--Enditem