Many young tourists choose Hue to visit heritages in combination with studying
Will come back to Hue again
According to Tourism Department, the period of 2010 – 2015 is the time that there was the highest number of Thai tourists coming to Hue, which is always on top of the total number of international tourists. However, since 2015, the number of Thai visitors has decreased rapidly. In 2017, the total number of Thai visitors coming to Hue was around 45 thousand arrivals, accounting for 5% of international tourists.
The leaders of Tourism sector shared, the decline in the number of Thai tourists coming to Hue was because of the limited travel policies of Thai government over the time; additionally, the development cycle and the emergence of new destinations inland and in the area have shared tourists with Hue.
According to Mr. Truong Minh Thanh, Director of the Tourism Promotion Center, it is expected to have progress since 2019 and the following years because by the end of last September, the delegation of Thai enterprises came and carried out a survey of Hue tourist routes. Thai enterprises said that, many new policies introduced by the Government in 2019 onwards will promote the development of tourism sector. This is the moment for enterprises to learn about the markets, the partners and build tours for the new stage.
According to the leaders of tourism sector, Hue has done many strategies to attract more Thai tourists after a long time of decrease. By the end of 2016, Hue and North Central provinces carried out a program to promote and introduce tourism products, and destinations in Bangkok and Udon Thani province (Northeastern Thailand). During this promotional trip, the delegation of Tourism Department worked with the Udon Thani Tourism Association to exchange the cooperation ability to together support connecting enterprises and impulse bilateral tourism activities between the two localities.
In the first stage, the Udon Thani Tourism Association held a studying tour to Hue and Quang Tri, Quang Nam and Da Nang with the aim to learn about world’s cultural heritages for students and lecturers of Tourism Faculty and some other departments belonging to universities in Udon Thani province. Historical and cultural values and tourism activities in Hue were highly appreciated by Udon Thani Tourism Association. The association also committed to plan ideas of building tours for tourists living in the province.
Recently, the School of Logistic and Supply Chains, Naresuan University has been sponsored by Thailand Research Fund (TRF) to implement the research about logistics development for sustainable tourism on the East-West Economic Corridor. The delegation has learned about information to serve their studies such as the main visit destinations, tourism activities, environmental management at tourist places for Hue in particular and in the East-West Economic Corridor in general. According to the evaluation of tourism sector, this is a premise to stimulate the influx of tourists to come to Hue more.
Need to be proactive
According to the Travel Management Office, Tourism Department, Thai tourists are seemed as an easy-going tourist influx. Their main demands are just visiting, experiencing and shopping. When Thai tourists come to Hue, visiting heritages and going shopping account for 55%. As for sea travel, it is not their popular choice because Thailand is the destination of which sea travel is well known.
Mr. Tran Dinh Minh Duc, Head of Travel Management Office of Tourism Department shared, the summer vacation of Thai students is from March to May annually. This is also the time that most families go travelling in year. From April to May, there are many public holidays. Thai people often link these vacations to weekends to travel abroad. Hue will exploit this “golden” time to strengthen the demand of the influx of young tourists who travel in form of both studying and learning about cultural and heritages.
Over the years, Hue has just exploited the influx of Thai tourists in northern area, along the East-West Economic Corridor. In the south such as Bangkok, Pattaya, Hue has to stimulate the tourist needs of the people from these cities. Mr. Truong Thanh Minh said that, Tourism sector is planning the project of increasing the promotional tours to the southern areas, because the northern area is saturate.
Intensifying promotion about Hue to new areas in Thailand is very necessary. According to the tourism enterprises experiencing the recent survey in Hue, the information on Hue tourism is quite limited in many areas. Especially in southern area, the tourists just know about big cities of Vietnam, while Thai tourists are very fond of culture, heritages.
The difficulty is transportation, the way that Thai tourists go to Hue. The road route on the East-West Economic Corridor has few choices. Thai drivers get quite confused because they drive on the right, opposite to that of in our country. Therefore, airline is the best solution. In order to reopen the charter flight, it needs more time. If the number of tourists is stable, the offices and related enterprises will think about reopening this flight.
Another thing that Hue needs to be proactive is build interregional products which are suitable for the demand of Thai tourists. At present, the flight from Bangkok to Da Nang is working well; linking the route Da Nang - Quang Nam - Hue - Quang Tri - Quang Binh will be helpful for localities to supplement each other in transportation and tourism products.
Story, photo: Duc Quang