Deputy Prime Minister Le Minh Khai signed Decision No 3 on the national statistical survey program.

The program has 45 surveys and studies, including three national total statistical censuses (population and housing census; rural area and agriculture census; and total economic census), and 42 survey campaigns in different fields.

There will be two surveys related to the tourism sector, including study of domestic travelers’ information, to be presided over by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism (MCST) and a survey on foreign travelers’ spending in Vietnam, to be presided over by the Ministry of Planning and Investment’s (MPI) General Statistics Office (GSO).

MPI will collect information about total spending and major expense items of foreign travelers in Vietnam, which will serve as the basis for calculating travelers’ average spending and spending structure.

This will also serve as a reference to set major criteria in tourism and tourism service exports, satisfying requirements of the System of National Accounts (SNA) and other requirements.

The subjects to be surveyed are foreign travelers staying at accommodation establishments.

Questions about the spending on travel, food, accommodation, excursion, culture and entertainment services, healthcare and shopping would be raised for travelers. The survey would record foreign travelers’ opinions about Vietnam’s natural landscapes, environment, material conditions and service quality of accommodation units in Vietnam.

According to the Vietnam National Administration of Tourism (VNAT), Vietnam saw the highest number of travelers and highest income from tourism in 2019. There were 18 million foreign travelers and 85 million domestic travelers in that year. The total revenue of the industry was VND755 trillion, a growth rate of 18.5 percent.

Another survey would be conducted by MCST, which would collect information about domestic travelers, thus serving management and tourism development programming.

Ngoc Ha