The Vietnam National Administration of Tourism (VNAT) expects to spend VND1 billion ($44,800) on e-marketing for tourism to increase Vietnam’s competitiveness. 

At the April 14 conference about applying e-marketing to promote tourism and e-commerce in tourism business in Vietnam, VNAT’s vice chairman Ha Van Sieu expressed the importance of e-marketing to the national tourism industry. 

“In the recent years, the application of digital technology, especially e-marketing, has had positive impacts on the tourism industry,” he said. “As promoting tourism is one of our core missions, VNAT expects to spend VND1 billion ($44,800) on e-marketing for tourism this year.”

In order to promote the domestic tourism, VNAT and the Tourism Advisory Board (TAB), a non-profit social enterprise representing Vietnam’s leading tourism stakeholders, formed a strategic marketing partnership in October 2015 to increase the country’s competitiveness as a tourism destination. 

Hawkins Pham

“We have three primary marketing channels, including digital, FAM trips and media relations, and tradeshows/exhibitions, but for 2016, the emphasis will be on online marketing,” said Hawkins Pham, a member of TAB and managing partner of ASEAN Capital.

According to Pham, the number of travellers that use online resources to make travel decisions is high, ranging from 16-80 per cent, depending on the market. “The digital experience is very broad,” he said. 

As a result, the goal of TAB and VNAT is to develop a digital marketing campaign. 

“In our e-marketing ecosystem, the foundation will be all about content. Our focus is to have a top content platform and spread out to multiple channels, like websites, Facebook, YouTube, Google, and Instagram. These channels are considered free media as the content is generated by users. Our strategy is to leverage this user-generated content and combine it with official government media in order to reach a broader audience,” he continued. 

“We recognise that travel and tourism represents at least 5 per cent of Vietnam’s GDP, which is roughly $10 billion. This has a very big impact on the economy,” said Pham. 

According to Sieu, despite the government spending $2 million from state budget on the country’s tourism sector, VNAT is calling for funds. “We hope to create more tourism development funds through the public-private partnership that VAB is based on,” Sieu said.