11th Tourism Advisory Board Meeting

   On 21st November 2017, the 11th Tourism Advisory Board (TAB) meeting took place at Conference room of Hotel Sofitel Legend Metropole Hanoi – 56 Ly Thai To, Hoan Kiem Dist., Ha Noi. The meeting was co-chaired by Mr. Nguyen Van Tuan – Chairman of Vietnam National Administration of Tourism (VNAT); Mr. Tran Hung Viet – Chairman of TAB; Mr. Kenneth Atkinson – Vice Chairman of TAB. The meeting received participation of Mr. Ha Van Sieu – Vice Chairman of VNAT and representatives from VNAT line departments, TAB members and Representative of the EU Delegation to Viet Nam. This is a biannual meeting of TAB with the aims of updating accomplished missions by its working groups and holding discussions on bottlenecks in tourism and coming up with recommendations and solutions so as to unblock those obstacles.

   Mr. Nguyen Van Tuan – Chairman of VNAT delivered remarks with Tourism sector’s situation updates. Those are included the followings: Government issued Action plan on implementation of Resolution No. 08-NQ/TW; VNAT is providing its assistance to the Government with developing the decree and circular on guidance of implementation of 2017 Tourism Law, which will come into effect in 2018; To the end of October 2017, Viet Nam welcomes 10.5 million international tourists and 62 million domestic ones, receives 23.5 billion USD in revenue from tourists; Viet Nam pavilion at WTM London 2017 has much more improvement than it was in previous years thanks to the effective support from TAB.

      At the discussion session, the participants joined in lively discussions. The working groups shared many valuable ideas and suggested numbers of solutions on such issues as 2nd Diploma Tertiary Education under the coordination between businesses and universities and colleges. In particular, the Vietnam Tourism Association is undertaking a project of developing software managing database of tour guides, training and ranking tour guides professionals.
   With regard to national tourism promotion, it was under consideration of proposing to the Prime Minister the establishment of National Tourism Promotion Agency, or National Tourism Promotion Board. 
   Many reaffirmed the importance of sustainable and responsible tourism development in relation to such core elements as clean, hospitable, and safe.
   The representative of EU Delegation to Viet Nam presented the necessity of enhancing TAB’s secretariat role in terms of providing consultation to VNAT in the Government’s process of making policies.
   The Tourism Advisory Board was established in 2012, which operates under the instruction of the Chairman of Vietnam National Administration of Tourism on the voluntary and non-profit basis and serves the purpose of advising the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism and VNAT on issues relating to the development of Vietnam tourism../.

Chien Thang