World Review of Entrepreneurship, Management and Sust. Development, Vol. X, No.

Y, XXXX

Sustainable integration in Vietnam’s tourism industry

Nguyen Minh Ngoc

Ho Chi Minh City University of Finance – Marketing,
Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
Email: nmmgoc@ufm.edu.vn

Nguyen Hoang Tien*

Ho Chi Minh University of Food Industry,
Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
Email: tiennh@hufi.edu.vn
*Corresponding author

Vu Minh Hieu
Van Lang University,
Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
Email: hieu.vm@vlu.edu.vn

Le Doan Minh Duc

University of Economics Ho Chi Minh City,
Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
Email: ducldm@ueh.edu.vn

Tran Thi Thuy Trang

Van Lang University,
Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
Email: trang.tranthi@vlu.edu.vn

Abstract: This article examines the possibilities of sustainable integration of

diverse services to create more values for the tourism industry in Vietnam. The
article presents the opportunities and challenges as well as the strengths and
weaknesses of the tourism industry regarding this trend in the process of its
sustainable development. The study in this article applied a descriptive
statistical method to analyse data obtained from local authorities of main
tourism provinces in Vietnam. The research results are fundamental to
formulate solutions, in the current conditions and context of tourism
development, to connect and integrate existing tourism services into
sustainable high-value offers toward maximisation customers’ satisfaction and
spending.

Keywords: sustainability; integration; tourism industry; Vietnam.

Copyright © 200X Inderscience Enterprises Ltd.

 N.M. Ngoc et al.

Reference to this paper should be made as follows: Ngoc, N.M., Tien, N.H.,
Hieu, V.M., Duc, L.D.M. and Trang, T.T.T. (XXXX) ‘Sustainable integration
in Vietnam’s tourism industry’, World Review of Entrepreneurship,
Management and Sustainable Development, Vol. x, No. y, pp.xx–xx.

Biographical notes: Nguyen Minh Ngoc[AQ1]

AQ1: Please supply
up to 100 words of
brief career history
for each author.

Nguyen Hoang Tien[AQ1]

Vu Minh Hieu[AQ1]

Le Doan Minh Duc[AQ1]

Tran Thi Thuy Trang[AQ1]

AQ2: If a previous
This paper is a revised and expanded version of a paper entitled [title] version of your paper
presented at [name, location and date of conference].[AQ2] has originally been
presented at a
conference, please
complete the statement
to this effect or delete if
not applicable.
1 Introduction

In the world’s fast progressing service economy, as a service industry, tourism has
become the most important business activity since it reduces unemployment, improves
living standards for the local community, promotes economic growth and social welfare
(Gabriel et al., 2017). Evidences from empirical studies around the world also confirmed
many principal positive influence of this industry on the national and local image,
competitiveness of a nation in the global business landscape (Dung et al., 2019; Duc et
al., 2019; Petrovic et al., 2017; Lucchetti and Arcese, 2014; Ngoc and Anh, 2020).
However, as a matter of fact, each business activity, regardless of industry, has its
unfavourable or even detrimental effects on the surrounding natural and social
environment (Long et al., 2019d; Villanueva-Alvaro et al., 2017). Many researches
conducted on environmental side-effect impacts of fast-growing tourism industry show:
 Sustainable integration in Vietnam’s tourism industry

the intensive land exploitation and massive energy consumption, the overuse of natural
resource, the degradation of biodiversity, the thinner ozone layer due to higher carbon
footprint, climate change, sea level rise and global diseases such as the Covid-19 (Long
et al, 2019e, 2019a, 2019b; Gossling, 2002; Gossling and Peeters, 2015; Sunlu, 2003).
The main social and community related side-effect impact of this phenomenon is,
amongst other, the social unrest and anxiety in local communities due to unknown effect
of cultural assimilation in most visited but sparsely populated localities (Diedrich and
Aswani, 2016).
Fast but less sustainable development of the tourism industry in Vietnam as well as in
other developing nations is related with many concerns on its unwelcome environmental
AQ3: ‘EU (2013)’ is effect (Dana, 1994). As a result, the concept of responsible and sustainable tourism was
not included in the
reference list. Please pinpointed in many tourism initiative and programs issued by European Union (EU,
provide the reference 2013[AQ3]) which highlight many challenges for the tourism activities in Vietnam in
details to be included addition to the erosion of traditions and values existed and cultivated for many
in the reference list, or generations in most of localities, cultural disparities and conflicts while clashing with
delete the citation if foreigners leading to distrust and disharmony between tourism firms and local
not required.
community, high sense of perceived social insecurity, destruction of cultural values,
depletion of natural resources and higher rate of environment degradation. As such, in
Vietnam, sustainable development of tourism is still questionable (Butler, 1991; Vinh et
al., 2019c, 2019a) and there is an urgent need of formulating a clear sustainable service
integration for tourism development in Vietnam. Sustainable service integration could
lead to stronger synergy effects alleviating above mentioned possible negative sides and
threats caused by intensively growing tourism industry in Vietnam as well as in other
developing nations.
Articles published in the World Review of Entrepreneurship, Management and
Sustainable Development so far have strongly focused on research on diverse issues
related to entrepreneurship and sustainability of business activities in many different
industries of predominantly developing countries around the world. In order to contribute
to one of the streams of research in this journal, this article is one of the first to carry out
overarching study of sustainable integration trend and issues of the tourism service sector
(industry) with a very specific background and competitive odds in Vietnam, also one of
the developing countries in the world.

2 Literature review

The concept of sustainable tourism development was, among others, one of the research
streams regarding sustainability issues introduced to management science literature by
different authors, researchers over quite a long time. Some of them are presented below:
Butler (1991) and Muller (1994) indicated that sustainable tourism development
includes tourism activities conducted with respect and in line with the interest of local
community, preserving socio-cultural values, guaranteeing both economic benefit and
natural environment untainted, while keeping tourists’ satisfaction unceasingly at high
level.
According to Vinh et al. (2019b); Dung et al. (2019) and Harris et al. (2002), the
cultural aspect of sustainable tourism development alone should be strictly associated
with conservation, preservation and embellishment of all functioning travel destinations
and tourism attractions, delivering hospitality related education and training for all walks
 N.M. Ngoc et al.

of society, promoting their active participation in creation and integration of tourism

offer and supporting services, enhancing their awareness on environmental issues
awareness and supervision capacity to avoid possible conflict of interests amongst
stakeholders.
The United Nations Environment Program (UNEP, 2005) simply defined sustainable
tourism development based on conditions that all tourism activities are conducted to
avoid negative consequences on community and social spheres, economic performance
of localities, ecosystems and natural surroundings.
Sustainable tourism industry is perceived as yielding high-economic performance for
business but also making significantly positive impacts on local cultural transformation
and social change such as creating jobs for workforce in the community, enhancing the
economic wellbeing, building image, reputation and prestige of the nation and localities,
speed-up the progress of local socio-economic development, enhancing sense of social
stability and state of social welfare along with the improvement on natural resources
preservation and natural surroundings protection and upgradation (Dung et al., 2019;
Beerli and Martin, 2004).
Moreover, in terms of time horizon, sustainable tourism development can also be
seen as meeting the needs of coming and staying visitors and the host localities now,
while still delivering opportunities to meet their needs in reaching future tourism
development goals (WCED, 1987; Long et al., 2019e, 2019a, 2019b). As such,
sustainable tourism development is determined by proper management of all social and
natural resources in a response to the socio-economic needs and development goals in the
long run (Barkauskasa et al., 2015; Anh, 2019b and 2019a). The principles of sustainable
tourism could be summarised as follows (Long et al., 2019c; Tien, 2018a, 2018b, 2018c;
Zainal et al., 2012):
 To deliver coming and potential visitors with practical experiences of best possible
quality services, as their needs and preferences are changing toward higher standards
and regularly require a highly personalised approach to be continually satisfied and
happy.
 To actively promote activities towards conservation and preservation of natural,
historical and cultural richness and diversity of all important tourism localities.
 To guarantee decent living for all members in the community via creating high-
income jobs and speeding up the local economic growth by better serving the high
end segment of tourists.
 To promote and communicate to everyone in the society that the highly developed
national tourism industry and sets of good tourism management practices imported
from industrialised countries could bring about many sustainable benefits to all
walks of the economy, society and surroundings.
These above guidelines will allow communities in many localities to realise the benefits
that they could receive by implementing cultural and non-cultural exchange between
visitors and the local people, preserving the environment intact and reducing the abuse of
social and natural resources.
Recently, there have been many high profile debates in both political, business sphere
and academia about the role of sustainable development and related sustainability issues
for the world, nations and enterprises. In particular, sustainable development could be
 Sustainable integration in Vietnam’s tourism industry

seen as a new management concept in the tourism industry of both developed and
developing nations (Long et al., 2019b, 2019d). Sustainable tourism development could
also be seen from a very unique perspective of synergetic integration of services to
combine and streamline offers to customers, at the same time to deliver high end
significant values to visitors while increasing economic benefits and reducing bad socio-
environmental impacts. Henceforth, in a short summary, the key roles of sustainable
development as a new management concept and orientation in the tourism industry are
presented as four following guidelines (Tien, 2018c; Dung, 2019; UNEP, 2005;
Villanueva-Alvaro et al., 2017; Gabriel et al., 2017):
 Firstly, it must contribute significantly to a long-term strong economic development
of the localities engaged in tourism development.
 Secondly, it must induce achieving major goals in terms of retaining political
stability, enhancing social progress and wellbeing, preserving cultural relics and
remembering historical values of the localities engaged in tourism development.
 Thirdly, it must lead to sparing use of precious natural resources, enriching
ecosystems and protecting surroundings.
 Fourthly, most importantly from the perspective of this study, it must lead
straightaway to the enhancement of international integration capacity of the tourism
industry.

3 Methodology

This article was intended to investigate the issues related to sustainability and integrity
regarding the tourism industry in developing countries. The research focused on Vietnam
where a high level of sustainability and integrity of tourism services is hardly observed.
To attain the objective of this study, a desktop, qualitative method which followed the
existing literature analysis was adopted (Opute et al., 2020; Dana and Dana, 2005). A
descriptive literature survey was used due to its suitability and ability to get adequate
insight into previous relevant research and theoretical issues. In this study, we used
keywords and other relevant strings to search for articles related to the sustainability and
integrity issues of the tourism industry. As such, we engaged a systematic and explicit
methods that will assist us in classifying, hand-picking and conducting evaluation of
appropriate literature related to the interesting research issues (Cronin et al., 2008;
St. John and McNeal, 2017). In order to ensure that accurate information was gathered,
we engaged in the process of back and forth reading and revision. Hence, the
data obtained from literature review reflected a wide range of theoretical perspectives and
viewpoints (Snyder, 2019).
To retain and expand the scope of methodology used in economic and
entrepreneurship research, this study applied a descriptive statistical method to analyse
data available from the General Statistic Office and Department of Culture, Sport and
Tourism of different localities and provinces in Vietnam (Dana and Dana, 2005). Data
on their tourism activities are collected, compiled and compared. In order to guarantee
quality and rigour during the research process we put forward very strict criteria for
research objects’ (localities, provinces) selection (Groenland and Dana, 2019):
 N.M. Ngoc et al.

 Province directly under the central government;

 Similar size and socio-economic development;
 Similar but not necessarily the same direction and orientation for tourism
development, especially in terms of sustainability and integrity of offered services.
Finally, four largest localities (cities or provinces) are selected for analysis. They are:
Hanoi Capital, Ho Chi Minh City, Danang province and Can Tho province. Through data
collection and analysis, we could draw conclusions and implications in line with our
research issues and interest and determine a new framework for further study in the
future.

4 Current development of vietnam’s tourism industry

4.1 Panorama of tourism industry in Vietnam

4.1.1 Total number of international tourists visiting Vietnam
One thing can be affirmed, since joining the WTO in 2007 up to now, the number of
international tourists coming to Vietnam has basically increased, although the increase
rate is not high as expected. The number of foreign tourists entering Vietnam in 2016
(more than 10 million visitors) was 2.5 times that of 2007 (more than 4 million visitors).
This is a very good sign for Vietnam's tourism industry. Tourism has been and will bring
Vietnam a greater opportunity to transform from an economy based mainly on
agriculture to a fully service economy. But if we compare the number of international
visitors to Vietnam to that of some ASEAN countries, we realise that there are still many
problems to ponder.
The data comparing Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand on the number of international
tourists shows that Vietnam’s tourism still has many limitations in attracting international
tourists. In the period 2010–2013, a comparison with Singapore and Malaysia shows that
the growth rate of Vietnam’s tourism is very high, this implies that the tourism potential
of Vietnam is very large, just behind Thailand only. By 2014, Vietnam’s growth rate
(4%) was lower than that of Malaysia (6.69%), while that of Thailand (–6.65%) and
Singapore (–0.33%) decreased compared to 2013. In particular, Thailand tourism has a
very high-growth rate and has surpassed Malaysia tourism in 2013, while in 2010 the
number of tourists to Malaysia was 25.575 million visitors and Thailand was 15.936
million visitors. In 2013, the number of visitors to Thailand was 26.547 million visitors
while in Malaysia it was 25.715 million visitors. However, by 2014 the number of
visitors to Malaysia (27.437 million visitors) surpassed Thailand (24.78 million visitors)
(UNWTO, 2015). This can be seen not only as a challenge but also as a lesson for the
Vietnamese tourism industry to learn from experience in planning development and
competitive strategies.

4.1.2 The number of tourists by nationality

The market of international tourists inVietnam is very promising. It can be said that from
2007 up to now, international tourists to Vietnam regularly come from about 30 countries
and territories. The number of international visitors to Vietnam in 2016 (about 10 million
 Sustainable integration in Vietnam’s tourism industry

visitors) was 2.5 times higher than in 2007 (about 4.2 million visitors) and from more
nationalities than in 2007 due to the fact that Vietnam is increasingly integrating with the
world. The five countries with the top number of tourists visiting Vietnam are: China,
Korea, Japan, the USA and Taiwan, respectively (GSO, 2016).
It can be said that in the past 10 years, the country with the highest number of
international visitors to Vietnam has always been China. And the number of Chinese
tourists coming to Vietnam is increasing day by day. In 2007, Chinese tourists coming to
Vietnam were only 574,600, accounting for about 14% of international tourists, by 2016,
this number was 2.7 million and about 27% respectively (GSO, 2016). Whether this is a
good or a bad sign, it will depend on not only the number of tourists entering Vietnam,
but also on their level of spending for local tourism products.
The world economy is developing strongly and the people’s lives are getting more
and more prosperous and well-off. So the travel demand of people in the world is
increasing day by day. China, with more than 1.4 billion people, will spend more on
tourism. Vietnam is one of the countries neighbouring China, so it is natural for Chinese
to come to Vietnam for touristic purposes. The increase in the number of tourists entering
Vietnam will help increase the central budget revenue in general and for localities with
potential of tourism development in particular. But if we are too dependent on Chinese
for tourism revenue sources as we were in terms of foreign trade, there may be times,
when China cuts off the sources of tourists coming to Vietnam for political or non-
political reasons, the impact on Vietnam's economy will be disastrous.

4.1.3 The number of tourists by location in Vietnam

It is very difficult to obtain tourism figures for each region of Vietnam. Data on the
number of international visitors by nationality coming to each region of Vietnam is even
more difficult. The article will carry out analysis based on the data of international
tourists coming to four major cities of Vietnam, namely Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City, Da
Nang City and Can Tho City.
International tourists to Ho Chi Minh City are the highest in number compared to the
whole country, accounting for over 50% of the total number of international tourists to
Vietnam. According to the data, in the period 2010 to2013, the growth rate of
international tourists to Ho Chi Minh City was much lower than the growth rate of the
whole country. However, in 2014 international tourists to Ho Chi Minh City reached
44.100 million arrivals, an increase of about 10.7% per year, much higher than the
national growth rate (4%) (DCSTHCMC, 2014b and 2014a). Besides, it also shows that
most tourism companies in Ho Chi Minh City have made adjustments to new strategies
and investments that are quite effective. Most of the international tourists come to
Vietnam from nearly around the globe: Northeast Asia, Southeast Asia, North America
and Europe.
Compared to the Hanoi Capital, Da Nang and Can Tho Province, although the
proportion of international visitors in Ho Chi Minh City compared to the whole country
tends to decrease, it still accounts for over 50% and is still higher than in Hanoi, Da Nang
and Can Tho Province. In 2014, if compared to the whole country, the number of
international visitors to Ho Chi Minh City was still much higher: 17% compared to
Hanoi, 43% compared to Da Nang Province and 53% compared to Can Tho Province.
Through comparative data, it shows that Ho Chi Minh City still maintains and tends to
grow highly and is the largest tourist centre in the country. However, with an exception,
 N.M. Ngoc et al.

out of these four localities, Chinese visitors coming to Da Nang Province are the most
and this also brings great opportunities and development challenges for Da Nang
Province (DSCTHCM, 2014b; DSCTHN, 2014; DSCTDN, 2014; DSCTCT, 2014).

4.2 Services offered by tourism industry in Vietnam

4.2.1 Shopping tourism
This type of tourism appears most frequently in large cities with crowded and densely
populated commercial spots, often with highly developed exchange and purchase
services such as Hanoi Capital and Ho Chi Minh City. According to data released in
2016, the whole country had 170 shopping centres (of which Hanoi Capital had 22
centres, Ho Chi Minh City had 40 centres), the whole country had 869 supermarkets (of
which Hanoi Capital had 124, Ho Chi Minh City had 193). Large business and enterprise
systems are responsible for sustaining commercial services in the biggest cities and they
could activate the development of tourism services. The total retail sales of goods and
services in Vietnam in 2016 reached 155 billion USD (of which Hanoi Capital
contributed 17.3 billion USD, Ho Chi Minh City contributed 33.6 billion USD). In
particular, revenues from accommodation and catering services account for 12.4%,
tourism and recreational services account for 12.8% and the remaining 74.8% (GSO,
2016). Today, many markets, trading complexes, shopping centres and production
establishments are included in tourism programs by travel businesses. Data shows that
the benefits and the ability to exploit shopping services are great to create a consumer
market for products for development of different economic sectors, including tourism.

4.2.2 Cultural tourism

This type of tourism attracts a lot of tourists, especially international visitors from
different cultural backgrounds. This includes holiday and festival tourism, garden and
flower tourism, craft village tourism and traditional cultural tourism. Typically, here in
Vietnam, as a very ethnically and culturally diverse nation, we have: Hue Festival, Dalat
Flower Festival, Perfume Pagoda, Lim Association, Bat Trang Tourism, Traditional
New Year, ethnic villages, etc. Within this type of tourism, visitors can both see many
places along with a lot of unique cultural experiences (FIDI, 2021; Huong, 2021).

4.2.3 River boating tourism

This is a type of river tourism with restaurants and entertainment services on the boat.
River tourists of Ho Chi Minh City in 2013 increased 20% compared to 2012. Ho Chi
Minh City has put into operation 4 types of river tourism routes, including: short-range,
mid-range, long-range and sea travel. In June 2013, Saigon Tourism Corporation
introduced a number of water travel programs to Cu Chi, Can Gio, District 7 and inner
city along Vo Van Kiet boulevard.

4.2.4 Ecotourism
Ecotourism is a type of tourism based on nature and indigenous culture, associated with
environmental education, making a great contribution to the survival and sustainable
development with active participation of the local community. This type of tourism
 Sustainable integration in Vietnam’s tourism industry

requires high responsibility from all sides (tourists, tourist companies, government,
society, local community) for areas with unspoiled natural environments. Tourists come
here to learn about the nature and culture of a given locality in the present and in the past.
Fortunately, Vietnam has the advantage of having many protected areas, national parks
and forbidden forests such as: Ha Long Bay, Ba Be Lake, Phong Nha Cave, Cat Tien
National Park and 8 biological reserves.
Can Gio mangrove forest with a diverse mangrove ecosystem is rich in plants and
animals, creating a clean ecological environment called ‘green lungs’ or ‘green wall’ of
Ho Chi Minh City. In 2000, UNESCO recognised Can Gio mangrove as a world
biosphere reserve. Can Gio mangrove ecological reserve is the place chosen by many
domestic and foreign tourists to visit and spend time within a day. According to the data,
annually Can Gio tourist area welcomes and serves about 450–500 thousand visitors, this
shows that the demand for ecotourism is huge and full of potential to bring great revenue,
and an image to Ho Chi Minh City as an attractive ecotourism destination.

4.2.5 MICE tourism

MICE (Meeting, Incentive, Conference, Event) tourism is a type of tourism that develops
very rapidly in recent years and accounts for a large proportion in the tourist market and
revenue structure. According to the Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism, in recent
years, business travelers account for 20% of the total number of international tourists to
Ho Chi Minh City and account for over 66% of the total revenue generated by them all
(DCSTHCMC, 2014a).
Ho Chi Minh City has many leading travel companies specialising in MICE tourism
such as: Saigon Tourist, Ben Thanh Tourist, Fiditour, TransViet, Hoa Binh Tourist, etc.,
in which Saigontourist is the leading company in exploiting this potential MICE market.
According to Hoa Binh Tourist, MICE accounts for nearly 70% of revenue, but only
about 20 to 25% of the company’s total number of visitors, that is in accordance with the
above mentioned figures. According to Saigon Tourist, in the first eight months of 2013,
Saigon Tourist organised nearly 80,000 MICE tours, of which international visitors
accounted for more than 70% (DCSTHCMC, 2014a).

4.3 Revenue from tourism of Vietnam

Following our research results, instead of market share, revenue is the most important
aim for Vietnam’s tourism industry. As mentioned above, this is what the tourism
industry wants to grow in addition to the increasing number of tourists. The Vietnam
tourism industry needs to increase revenue from visitors’ spending, both domestic and
international. In this respect, the Vietnam tourism industry still faces many limitations
and challenges. Therefore, we would like to analyse this issue in more detail.
Analysis shows that the total revenue from tourists’ spending in Vietnam in recent
years has increased significantly and steadily rose each year. In 2007, the figure was 2.43
billion USD, then in 2016 it was 17.4 billion USD (an increase of more than 7 times).
However, this revenue growth rate went up and down erratically.
Statistics of the World Tourism Organisation shows that the tourism revenue of
Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore is much larger than that of Vietnam. However, by 2014,
the revenue from tourism of Vietnam and Malaysia continued to grow while tourism
revenue of Singapore and Thailand decreased due to the contracting number of visitors,
 N.M. Ngoc et al.

but still much higher than Vietnam. In terms of the average tourist spending per day,
Singapore is the highest, followed by Thailand, Vietnam and Malaysia close to the same
level.
If we only look at spending from international visitors to Vietnam alone, we find that
there are many problems. This is the most important thing to consider when trying to
increase the quality of services for international tourism. In fact, we can only see that the
total revenue from serving international visitors to Vietnam has basically increased.
Although it has increased, compared to the world, this number is still quite modest.
Unfortunately, the revenue structure per international visitor in Vietnam has not
increased, or even decreased.
The revenue is not high with the large number of tourists, so the average spending per
day of international visitors to Vietnam is increasing but not at a high level. In 2005, the
average daily spending of international visitors to Vietnam was 76.4 USD, but in 2013 it
increased to 95.8 USD. However, we have seen a downward trend from 2013 to present.
In 2017, it also plummeted because many 0USD tours were offered. In terms of structure
of spending, much is still spent on room rental (25–28%); and eating and drinking (18–
22%). Unfortunately, spending on local goods (products and services) by international
visitors to Vietnam is decreasing day by day. In 2005, spending on goods accounted for
16.6% of total expenditure of international visitors to Vietnam. But this figure in 2013
was only 13.3%.
Carefully analysing the average daily spending of international visitors to Vietnam by
nationality, we find that the order of tourists spending in Vietnam has always changed. If
in 2005, the top 5 countries with daily average spending were: Singapore (120.8 USD –
1.5 times higher than the average); Malaysia and Spanish (with the same amount of 103.6
USD – 1.4 times higher than the general average); Indonesia (99.6 USD – 1.3 times
higher than the average); South Korea (97.3 USD – more than 1.2 times than the
average). By 2013, this order was ranked first by Malaysia (147.2 USD – 1.5 times than
the average); second is Singapore (138 USD – 1.4 times higher than the average); third is
Russia (124.0 USD – nearly 1.29 times higher than the average); fourth is Sweden (121.9
USD – 1.27 times higher than the average); fifth is Laos ($ 116.9 – more than 1.2 times
than the average) (GSO, 2016). From 2005 – 2013, Singapore, Japan, Malaysia and
Indonesia were always in the top ranks in terms of average daily spending in Vietnam.
Regretfully, the number of visitors from these top spending countries to Vietnam is too
small. The number of visitors from all four mentioned countries combined is not equal to
the number of Chinese tourists entering Vietnam.
Considering the 5 countries with the lowest per day spending in Vietnam, the order
also changes significantly. In 2007, five countries with the lowest average daily spending
in Vietnam were mostly from Europe: Russia ranked first ($ 47.9 – only equal to 57.4%
of the average); second is Italy (50.9 USD – only 61% of the average); third is
Switzerland (53.6 USD – only 64.2% of the average); fourth is Norway (56.4 USD –
only 67.5% of the average); fifth is the Philippines (64.3 USD – just 77% of the average).
By 2013, the order is in turn: Spain is ranked first (72.3 USD – only equal to 76% of the
general average); second is Belgium (75.1 USD – only 78.4% of the general average);
third is the Netherlands (77.1 USD – only 80.5% of the general average); fourth is China
(84.6 USD – just equal to 88.3% of the average) and the fifth is France (85 USD – just
equal to 88.7% of the average) (GSO, 2016).
To sum up, during the period from 2005 to 2013, Japan, Singapore, Malaysia,
Indonesia always ranked in the top 5 countries with the largest average daily spending of
 Sustainable integration in Vietnam’s tourism industry

visitors to Vietnam. Meanwhile, countries such as Belgium, the Netherlands, France and
China always fall in the top 5 countries with the lowest average daily spending of visitors
to Vietnam. Especially for China, with its large quantity of tourists and their lower
spending, it will be difficult to generate income from tourism for Vietnam. Especially in
recent years, China regularly offers 0 USD (free of charge) tours to Vietnam.

5 Towards sustainable integration of Vietnam tourism industry

5.1 SWOT analysis for Vietnam tourism industry

From the international environmental perspectives and conditions, national and regional
cooperation agreements, socio-economic development, results of so far
internationalisation of tourism industry in Vietnam and the assessment of tourists, we
would like to point out a number of opportunities and challenges, key strengths and
weaknesses affecting the quality of Vietnam tourism industry. The Vietnam tourism
industry has great advantages in line with many strengths as good opportunities to be
adequately promoted, but there are still many weaknesses and challenges that are barriers
hindering tourism development.

5.1.1 Opportunities and challenges

 Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) between Vietnam and other countries or regions
(such as the EU, the alliance of Eurasian countries, etc.), as well as the signing other
agreements by Vietnam (Vietnam – EU; Vietnam – Korea; CTTPP, etc.) have a
major positive impact on business activities, but also give Vietnam tourism industry
opportunities to expand beyond the current market; import of tourism equipment and
technology; exchange tourism management experiences and training, thereby
significantly contributing to improving the quality of tourism services and level of
tourists’ satisfaction.
 The basic advantages and opportunities to enhance Vietnam tourism’s
competitiveness, attract and best serve tourists from the official establishment of the
ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) on 31st December 2015 is the expansion of
the tourism market, connecting Vietnam with tourism destinations in ASEAN;
promoting Vietnam as an important tourism hub in the ASEAN common system of
destinations; obtaining high-quality tourism human resources from ASEAN member
states; creating motivation for Vietnam tourism industry to improve the quality of
human resources as well as to better improve the factors that affect the
competitiveness of the whole tourism industry.
 In addition to the advantages and opportunities, Vietnam’s international tourism
industry also faces many challenges from competition with regional destinations,
especially the quality of the tourism workforce, which directly is relevant to the
quality of the tourism service offered.
 N.M. Ngoc et al.

5.1.2 Advantages (strengths)

Firstly, it has a favorable geographical location: Vietnam is a gateway for trade between
countries in the region, it is a traffic hub and passenger transfer station, close to regional
countries, convenient for connection, association and development. Therefore, Vietnam
is a convenient travel destination for tourists arriving by different routes by air, land, sea
and short time arrivals.
Second, natural and human resources: favorable conditions suitable for tourism all
year round; the interlaced river system is favorable for the development of river and eco-
tourism; the system of historical – cultural relics, architectural construction embellished
and preserved attracts many foreign tourists to visit and experience. This opens many
attractive choices for tourists during their trip.
Third, infrastructure: the transport system is well invested and developed
synchronously, favorable for the overall development in general and for the development
of tourism industry in particular, connecting with surrounding regions and regional
countries; the extensive, high-quality and with reasonable cost health care system
facilitates the development of medical tourism.
Fourthly, tourist technical facilities: the accommodation system is extensive and
diverse in types to meet the accommodation needs of tourists; modern post and
telecommunications systems facilitate tourists to connect, communicate with relatives
and to work in distance; a developed financial system meets the needs of tourists to
withdraw money and exchange currencies.
Fifth, diversified tourism products and services: diversified offers of products and
services give tourists many selection options to feel excited and interested in diverse trips
such as: local shopping, watching seas and rivers and learning on culinary issues.
Sixth, price competition: this is a strong point of the Vietnam tourism industry in
competing with similar tourism destinations of other countries inside and outside the
ASEAN region. With strict management policies that bring tourists a quality service at a
reasonable cost, this makes tourists feel secure and affordable while traveling to
Vietnam.
Seventhly, the economic, political and social environment: the stability of the socio-
politics brings safety to tourists and facilitates all potential tourism activities.
Eighthly, the education system: Vietnam has many large educational centres. Besides,
it is a home to many excellent scientists, training for skilled workforce is widely
delivered for the needs of modern economy and society with focus on services sectors
including tourism industry.
In general, Vietnam is a tourism destination rated by tourists as an attractive one in
the region.

5.1.3 Disadvantages (weaknesses)

Besides the strengths, Vietnam tourism still shows many weaknesses, especially in terms
of quality of services delivered. At present, as analysed above, Vietnam’s international
tourism industry is mainly a low-class to middle market with a low average spending per
day in Vietnam. This is because:
Firstly, there is no cross-link between relevant stakeholders from the government, the
tourism industry, travel companies and relevant agencies, leading to ineffective policies.
 Sustainable integration in Vietnam’s tourism industry

Second, the link between the tourism industry, supporting economic sectors and the
people is limited, leading to low operational efficiency.
Third, investment in entertainment services is still low, leading to insufficient to
respond to the current demand and beside new and different types of entertainment, it has
not attracted tourists in practice in relevance to its current capacity, especially the
international tourists.
Fourth, the limitations in terms of natural conditions: such as forest and nature
reserves. Monotonous terrain is not favourable for adventure tourism and nature
discovery.
Fifth, traditional festivals and folk arts are not rich enough: the traditional festivals
and Vietnamese folk arts are not abundant and have not really impressed tourists.
Sixth, offer tourism products and services: there are not many unique and novel
services. Products and services should be innovative, so it needs continuous investment
in innovation and renovation to meet the needs of tourists.
Seventh, tourist facilities and techniques: limited entertainment spots, lack of tourism
attractions, and overall monotony have not met the needs of tourists.
Eighth, the public service system: the public transport system is lacking, the clean
water supply system is not stable in terms of quantity and quality, the public toilet system
has not met the standard of hygiene are some of examples, just to name a few.
Ninthly, price competition: lack of linkage and effective management leads to the
lack of synchronisation, making the overall cost of the trip unattractive to tourists even
though the main costs are discounted like package tour prices.
Tenth, human resources: the quality of human resources is humble, especially their
skills and attitudes are not professional, beside their inadequate and poor social and
business knowledge.
Eleventh, service quality and customer relationship has not been properly managed
and cared for, leading to the poor customer care services, such as managing feedback and
handling tourists’ encountered problems has not really satisfied tourists.
Twelfth, tourism promotion and marketing strategies still show many limitations and
less impressions in organising domestic and international tourism promotions, events,
fairs, festivals, exhibitions and conferences, in addition to the marketing and commercial
information updates. Organisation of events, introductory festivals has not made an
impression on tourists.
Thirteenth, the natural environment management encountered many limitations,
especially in terms of the pollution of water sources and air. The waste is caused and
released by multiple ways: citizens, tourists, tourism companies and service delivery
points.

5.2 Towards a sustainable integration in the Vietnam tourism industry

Positive impacts of tourism development in Vietnam are: jobs creation, improved living
standards of local people, increased national currency reserves and socio-economic
growth. Negative impacts of tourism development in Vietnam are: drastic increase of
land and energy usage, depletion of natural resource, loss of biodiversity, reduction of
ozone layer, increase of carbon footprint, climate change and global diseases, higher theft
and crime rates, drugs usage and trafficking problems, erosion of traditions and values,
cultural disparities, distrust and disharmony between tourism firms and local community.
 N.M. Ngoc et al.

Sustainable tourism development means synergetic integration of services to combine

and streamline current and potential offers, at the same time to deliver significant values
to visitors while increasing economic benefits and reducing socio-environmental impacts.
That includes the following aspects:
 Enhancing visitors’ satisfaction with a personalised (customised) approach to their
needs;
 Economic development, social welfare and full respect to the local culture
(conserving tourism destinations and preserving richness and stimulating cultural
exchange);
 Proper manage ecosystem, protection of the environment and natural resource;
 Education and active participation of local people in tourism services creation;
 Meet the needs of tourists and the host regions both today and tomorrow;
 Good tourism management practices.
Identified unsustainability issues of Vietnam tourism industry:
 Proportion, diversification and increase rate, level of spending of international
tourists is lagging behind some of ASEAN countries. Surprisingly, visitors coming
from rich and developed countries spend less than those from developing countries
in the region.
 Prices are reasonable but prices of all-inclusive tourism offer are higher than that of
some ASEAN countries.
 International tourists are concentrated rather in the largest cities as high-end
innovative services such as MICE tourism are strongly developed there and they are
better served by professional tourism companies.
 Beside better quality of accommodation and shopping tourism services in the largest
cities, the entertainment and recreational services there are still inadequate and less
attractive.
 Cultural tourism is underdeveloped, underexploited and does not truly reflect the full
potential of Vietnam in this area.
 Sea, lake, river and mountain tourism is also underdeveloped, underexploited and
does not truly reflect the full potential of Vietnam in this area.
 Despite full development potential, ecotourism should be paid more attention and it
needs heavy investment in soft assets and education to raise awareness of all walks
of the society.
 Despite the ongoing trend of integration as Vietnam could be one of the tourism
hubs in the region, the lack of tourism management experiences and staff training
services hinder the contribution to improving the quality of services and tourists’
satisfaction. We also observe the lack of link between the tourism industry and other
supporting socio-economic industries.
 Sustainable integration in Vietnam’s tourism industry

 Inadequate investment in PR, branding, marketing, promotion, customer care service

and customer relationship management activities in the long-term.
Ways to reduce unsustainability by increasing integrity of tourism offers in Vietnam:
 Connect with, participate in and deeply integrate into the fast-developing tourism
supply chain in the ASEAN region. Close cooperation with travel agencies in the
region to be able to integrate Vietnam’s tourism products and services with tourism
products and services of other countries (by forming inter-regional tours) in order to
diversify, cut costs and improve attractiveness for tourists. Thereby, we could
increase spending and length of stay, along with the satisfaction of visitors from
highly developed countries outside of ASEAN, so that Vietnam becomes one of the
tourism hubs of the region.
 Closely cooperate and link largest cities (Hanoi Capital, Ho Chi Minh City, Hai
Phong, Da Nang, Can Tho province) with their satellite cities, followed by rural far-
off areas to provide comprehensive, diverse and unique travel service packages for
domestic and international tourists.
 Exploit the strengths of cultural tourism and sea-lake-river-mountain tourism of
Vietnam and integrate them all into cross-regional tours organised based on the
cooperation and coordination of travel agencies in the region.
 Professionalise, train high-quality human resources, continuously learn from
experience in management and organisation of entertainment and recreational
services of countries with highly developed tourism industry and high quality of
tourism services in the region such as Malaysia and Thailand.
 Integrate the ecotourism industry into national environmental protection policies and
strategies for developing service industries and a green economy in a sustainable
way, improve the sense of community and social responsibility of the tourism
industry to stakeholders in both short term and the long term.

5.3 Implications, limitations and further researches

The research results and conclusions are fundamental enough to formulate solutions,
facing current conditions and context of Vietnam tourism industry, in order to
synergically integrate diverse tourism services into sustainable high value offers,
optimising available tourism resources, reducing side effects of tourism development and
toward maximising tourists’ satisfaction and spending. Research results could be
cornerstones for policy makers and tourism business managers to adequately plan their
pathways forwards to a bright future of tourism development as one of the important
sectors contributing greatly to the national socio-economic development.
The most critical limitation of this study, among others, is not to continue exploration
on relations between the sustainability of tourism development and the integrity of
tourism offer of companies in Vietnam in current context of ASEAN tourism
development marked by several milestones such as: diverse free trade agreements signed
by single nations or by the whole block; the formation of ASEAN Economic Community
(AEC) in 2025 and the aftermaths. However, this gap could be filled by future research
works.
 N.M. Ngoc et al.

Acknowledgement

This research is partly funded by Van Lang University, Ho Chi Minh City University of
Food Industry, University of Finance – Marketing, University University of Economics
Ho Chi Minh City (UEH) in Vietnam.

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