Japanese tourist arrivals in Vietnam

Japanese tourist arrivals down - Japanese tourist arrivals in Vietnam

Four years in a row witnessed a steady rise in Japanese tourist arrivals in Vietnam but a dreary trend began looming large in the first five months of this year.
In January-May, around 169,640 Japanese people came to Vietnam down 4.9% year-on-year, says a report by the General Statistics Office.

This is in stark contrast with the four previous years, with Japanese arrivals in 2004 growing 27.5%, 20% in 2005, 13.4% in 2006, and 9% in 2007. This trend also indicates slower growth in Japanese tourist arrivals in 2004-2007.

Tour operators, shop owners and hotels say the number of Japanese visitors has continued growing but at a slower pace in recent years.

"Since late 2007, the number of Japanese guests was down 50%," said Duong Thanh Thuy, the owner of Miss Aodai, and Orient shopping centers in HCMC, which sell handicrafts and souvenirs to foreign tourists, especially Japanese.

The Miss Aodai center alone now serves 150-200 Japanese guests a day, down from 300-400 guests in the same period last year.

A seller of the Legend Saigon hotel says the number of Japanese tourists is not as big as in previous years. "The number of Japanese guests slightly increased last year but it went down in the first months of this year," she said.

Dao Hoang Lien, secretary general of PATA Vietnam Chapter, also mentions a drop in Japanese visitors to Vietnam.

Around 10 years ago, 'booming' was the buzzword in the Japanese tourist market segment. After a visit to Japan by the men Prime Minister Phan Van Khai in 2003, Vietnam attracted 500,000 Japanese tourists in 2005.

However, the tourism sector got nearly 420,000 guests from Japan last year.

The limited number of tourist attractions in Vietnam has made tours unattractive. Few have repeated their Vietnam visits.

Japanese tourists are reining in spending as a spike in inflation is biting, but tour costs in Vietnam have continued increasing due to ballooning hotel room rates, thus discouraging them from traveling to the country.

In the past, Vietnam had tourism promotion programs in Japan, but now there are less, if no, programs to promote the image of Vietnam in the Japanese market.

Vietnam has yet to have a representative office in Japan to organize regular events and programs to give Japanese travelers updated information.

Vietnam needs to supply updated information in Japanese, promote new destinations to Japanese tourists, and improve existing products such as fishing village tours, spa, skincare and massage, representatives of the PATA Japan Chapter said in a visit to Vietnam from May 18 to 24.

They added popular destinations should be introduced to Japanese tourists as well. Many Japanese have never heard about tourist attractions like the hilly resort town of Dalat Binh Chau hot spring and the central seaside town of Nha trang

(Source: SGT)

Tag: Dalat , Handicraft , Hcm , Hotel , Japan , Japanese , Nha Trang , Resort , Saigon , Saigon Hotel , Tour , Tourism , Tourist , Travel , Vietnam

Japanese tourist arrivals down - Japanese tourist arrivals in Vietnam

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