VietNamNet Bridge – Currently, all the foreigners entering the Vietnamese territory are counted as “foreign travelers.”

The Vietnam National Administration of Tourism (VNAT) stated that Vietnam received 6.847 million international tourists in 2012. However, experts have pointed out that the figure includes the foreign people entering Vietnam on business and the foreign travelers. Therefore, the currently applied way of calculation does not exactly reflect the real situation of Vietnam’s tourism.

Who are foreign travelers?

According to Deputy General Director of VNAT--Hoang Thi Diep, the statistics about inbound tourists are sourced from the General Statistics Office. Since there has been no other official source, all the foreigners entering Vietnam as counted by the statistics office would be considered as “foreign travelers.”

The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism in 2012 asked VNAT to find a more reliable calculation method. However, this remains a difficult task. The world’s tourism organization still leaves the calculation open, while it’s also very difficult to count domestic travelers.

Meanwhile, people still argue about what “travelers” mean. Phan Van Tan, the spokesman of the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, said when someone goes abroad to do sight-seeing, he is a traveler. People nowadays tend to integrate different purposes in the same trips.

MICE (meeting, incentive, conference, and exhibition) tourism has been developing very strongly, while those who go under MICE programs, are counted on as travelers. When people go relaxing somewhere and having healthcare services, they would be also listed as “travelers.”

“Some people misunderstand that only those who go sightseeing could be considered as travelers,” Tan said.

According to VNAT’s Deputy General Director--Nguyen Manh Cuong, the world’s tourism organization defines tourists as the people who leave their countries to other territories, except the people who go abroad for working. When the people use services in the destination countries, this means that they use travel services. Those, who go abroad to attend conferences, have healthcare services or visit relatives, should all go for “tourists.”

Deputy Chair of the Vietnam Tourism Association--Vu The Binh, said any people who use the accommodation, sleeping and meal services are “travelers.”

Therefore, Binh denied the criticism that VNAT has provided a “virtual” number of travelers. “The number of 6.84 million foreign tourists in 2012 was accurate. The number is smaller than the total number of foreigners arriving in Vietnam in 2012, after deducting the number of workers and students,” Binh said.

How many foreign tourists go to Vietnam?

However, an official of the Statistics Office affirmed that not all the foreigners arriving in Vietnam are considered “foreign tourists,” because the foreigners arriving in Vietnam include foreign tourists and the people who go to Vietnam to have healthcare services, to study or go on business.

Especially, he said the foreigners who enter Vietnam to work or study for more than one year also should not be listed as foreign travelers. A foreigner, who has 1-year training course in Vietnam, may leave Vietnam for the home country and then return to Vietnam several times during the one year. And every time when he enters Vietnam, he would be marked as one “foreign traveler.”

“One should not simply say that every foreigner entering Vietnam is a foreign traveler,” he said.

Deputy Head of the Tourism Research and Development Institute--Pham Trung Luong, said it is necessary to reconsider the calculation method to find out the actual number of tourists, because only reliable figures would allow to draw up reasonable policies to help develop the tourism industry.

Nguyen Ngan – Duc Xuyen