Vietnam tourism braced for challenges post-WTO
12:11 04/03/2009

      Vietnamese tourism firms, like their counterparts in all other sectors, are faced with both challenges and opportunities in the aftermath of the country’s World Trade Organization entry recently.

Nguyen Quoc Ky, general director of major state tourist agency Vietravel, said domestic tourism firms were set to lose the benefits provided by protectionist policies.

Foreign partners, forced to form joint ventures with local players until now, could pull out, wanting to go alone with their greater financial and professional capabilities in addition to the knowledge acquired over the years in this country.

As a result, many small companies could go bankrupt, be swallowed by larger companies, or lose their best employees to bigger firms who could offer them better working conditions and salaries.

Ky also expressed concern over the lack of legal awareness on the part of Vietnamese enterprises who paid little notice to national and international laws.

But Nguyen Viet Hung, Ky’s counterpart at Fiditourist – a Ho Chi Minh City-based travel agency – said Vietnamese tourist enterprises should not be too concerned because the integration would be gradual.

Vietnam would not immediately throw open its doors to foreign companies. Besides, the Vietnamese tourism industry had gained substantial experience in the last few years and could well thrive, he said.

Preparations

Both executives said their companies would focus strongly on service quality as it was the key factor in the industry.

They planned to expand by opening offices in foreign countries like Thailand, Singapore, and Cambodia, and train and retrain their staff to be more dynamic and professional.

They would focus especially on studying national and foreign legal systems and applying IT in their business, they said.

Source: Nguoi Lao Dong – Translated by Tuong Nhi

Source : thanhniennews.com