The Vietnam Tourism Association (VITA) and the Vietnam E-commerce Association (VECOM) jointly organized the Vietnam Online Tourism Day 2019 with the theme “Inevitable trend of online tourism” in Hanoi yesterday.
Speaking at the event, Vice Chairman of VITA Vu The Binh said that online travel industry has been booming and just 30 percent of travelers choose traditional tourism because industry 4.0 has evolved to lead tourism industry to new trend.
From flight bookings to accommodation, the market is evolving and must adapt to new technologies. Free and independent traveler (FIT) have risen in inbound and outbound tours producing more potential for the country’s tourism industry. More advanced techniques have been applied in online tourism.
However, Vietnam's online tourism ranks fifth over six countries in Pacific-Asian region which are ranked in the list and its growth rate is after Indonesia, Thailand, Singapore
According to VITA’s statistics, within five years recently, the number of people seeking for Vietnam’s tourism information in internet has risen around 32 times including more than 8 million and 5 million searching in information of domestic and foreign tours in Vietnamese in peak and off-peak season respectively.
However, local tourism companies are weaker than their foreign-invested peers, said Mr. Vu The Binh.
Statistically, internationally well-known Agoda and Booking account for 80 percent of accommodation market share in the country. Specifically, Agoda has over 7,600 hotel partners meanwhile Booking has over 6, 000 hotels to offer for travelers to Vietnam.
Accordingly, the two websites can offer accommodation even in peak season for tourists plus promotion program and discount.
The market has seen the participation of Traveloka, Trivago, Expedia in addition to Agoda and Booking. These websites offer best accommodation price along with discount and convenient payment to win customers.
The event is a chance for tourism business to have a general vision of the industry’s potential in Vietnam and enhance adoption of technologies and learn experience from leading companies in term of airplane to accommodation booking.
