Capital tourism gradually affirms its role as a key economic sector

Hoan Kiem Lake, Hanoi is always an attractive destination for
 domestic and international tourists. Photo: VGP/Minh Anh

The capital Hanoi, with its thousands of years of history, natural landscape, strategic geographical location, and modern transport infrastructure and facilities, has great potential to develop tourism into a key economic sector in the new context.

Great potential for tourism development in the capital

Sharing his comments and assessments on the potential for tourism development in the capital in an interview with reporters of the Government Electronic Newspaper, Dr. Nguyen Anh Tuan, Director of the Institute for Tourism Development Research, said that Hanoi currently has many new opportunities in tourism development. The geographical location is an advantage for the capital Hanoi to develop its economy in general and tourism in particular, playing the role of a focal point and tourism center connecting the whole country and with the region and the world.

Hanoi City is located in the Northwest of the Red River Delta, bordering 8 provinces in the region. As the junction between the Red River Delta and the Northern midland and mountainous region, Hanoi has many advantages in trading with the provinces in the region and the whole country. At the same time, the capital Hanoi is also located on the axis of 4 economic corridors, including 2 international corridors connecting with provinces of China - Vietnam's largest tourist market.

Regarding tourism resources, Hanoi has diverse and rich natural tourism resources with a system of rivers, lakes, mountains, ecological areas, Ba Vi National Park, Huong Son tourist area, Quan Son Lake - Tuy Lai Lake, West Lake, Hoan Kiem Lake... The above outstanding natural tourism resource values ​​are potential for developing types of eco-tourism, resorts, and sports tourism.

In addition, Hanoi also has a unique system of cultural and historical heritage, including nearly 6,000 relics, including the world cultural heritage of Thang Long Imperial Citadel and many national relics such as the Temple of Literature - Quoc Tu Giam, One Pillar Pagoda and the old quarters; Hanoi's architecture bears the mark of a long history, closely associated with people's daily life, culture and religious beliefs.

Hanoi is also known as the capital of pagodas and traditional craft villages - an important advantage for developing cultural tourism. Intangible cultural values, festivals, and diverse and unique cuisine are also valuable tourism resources to exploit cultural tourism.

Not only that, Hanoi Capital also has a diverse and developed transportation system, including roads, railways, waterways and Noi Bai International Airport connecting with localities in the Red River Delta, the Capital region, the Northern provinces, the whole country and internationally. Hanoi's accommodation system is also the best in the country with many hotels from high-end to budget, meeting the needs of many types of tourists.

Capital tourism is developing in the right direction

According to Director of the Institute for Tourism Development Research Nguyen Anh Tuan, the period 2011-2019 recorded a rapid increase in the number of tourists to Hanoi. The average growth rate was about 10%/year, of which international visitors reached 17.9%/year, equivalent to 1 million additional international visitors each year.

In the period of 2020-2021, Hanoi tourism was strongly affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2021, the number of visitors to Hanoi was only about 4.0 million.

In 2023, the capital's tourism industry witnessed a strong breakthrough, with the number of visitors reaching 24 million, an increase of 9.1% compared to the plan, equivalent to 83% of the results in 2019. This recovery and growth is proof of the attractiveness of Hanoi tourism.

Compared to the tourism development driving force region, the average annual growth rate of international visitors to Hanoi (17.9%) is significantly higher than that of Hai Phong (6%), Ninh Binh (4%), Quang Ninh (12%) and higher than the average growth rate of the Red River Delta (14.5%) and the whole country (14.7%).

Compared to some other tourist centers in Vietnam, Hanoi's growth rate is lower than Da Nang (26.6%), Khanh Hoa (29.9%) but higher than Ho Chi Minh City (11.9%), Can Tho (13.1%). In the whole country, the total number of international visitors to Hanoi ranks second, only after Ho Chi Minh City.

Compared with some capitals and cities with similar development levels and sizes, Hanoi is in the middle group in terms of attracting international visitors with 7.025 million visitors in 2019. Hanoi welcomed more international visitors than Jakarta (2.84 million), Manila (1.95 million) but less than Seoul (9.5 million), Taipei (11.1 million), Kuala Lumpur (13.86 million) and especially Bangkok (22.8 million).

Assessing the strengths of the tourism industry in the current period, Dr. Nguyen Anh Tuan said that the capital's tourism has been developing in the right direction, with a relatively fast growth rate, an increasingly expanding tourist market, and a relatively diverse tourism product system. Hanoi has affirmed its particularly important position in the tourism development of the North and the whole country.

Tourism infrastructure and technical facilities are increasingly invested in a synchronous and modern direction, creating conditions to promote tourism development.

Hanoi builds many new tourism products

Currently, Hanoi's tourism products are mainly focused on developing in the 4 inner-city districts, along with the Ba Vi-Son Tay area, the Me Linh-Soc Son area and the Huong Son-My Duc area with the themes of cultural and historical tourism, spiritual tourism, festival tourism; tourism based on nature and agriculture; entertainment tourism; golf tourism; shopping tourism; MICE tourism.

In recent times, to meet new trends, the capital's tourism industry has been developing new tourism product groups to serve the diverse needs of each group of tourists such as: Night tourism including special tours such as the "Quintessence of the North" live performance program, Hoa Lo night tour, walking spaces, "Decoding Thang Long Imperial Citadel" tour, Van Mieu-Quoc Tu Giam night tour "Quintessence of Taoism"...; Sports tourism products including Hanoi discovery tour by bicycle "VGreen bike tour", mountain climbing and jogging tours in Soc Son district...

In addition, there are a number of other products such as community tourism combined with ecology and experience in Ba Vi district; golf tourism combined with cultural tourism in Son Tay...

According to Dr. Nguyen Anh Tuan, tourism in the capital is increasingly asserting its role as a key economic sector, promoting the development of other sectors and fields, contributing to the economic restructuring. The image of the capital is widely promoted to the world.

Besides these strengths, the Director of the Institute of Tourism Research also said that Hanoi tourism still has some limitations. Specifically, the tourism resource system has not been exploited and promoted effectively, many valuable tourism resources have been planned but have not attracted investment to create tourism products.

The quality of tourism products is uneven, not diverse, lacking creativity, lacking core and key tourism products that are imbued with Hanoi’s identity. Hanoi also lacks large-scale, high-quality and classy entertainment and resort areas that are attractive enough to prolong the length of stay and increase visitors’ spending.

The scale of tourism enterprises is still small, competitiveness is weak, and strong tourism enterprises with international brands have not been formed. Technical infrastructure for tourism such as accommodation facilities and tourism services are not uniform, distributed in a scattered manner, lacking in quantity, uneven in quality, and lacking high-quality accommodation facilities (4-5 stars).

Hanoi has not yet coordinated and linked the promotion work with the marketing work of enterprises, has not kept up with market trends; has not yet built annual, large-scale cultural-tourism events bearing the mark of the capital... The above limitations have partly reduced the competitiveness of Hanoi tourism compared to domestic, regional and international competitors.

Therefore, Dr. Nguyen Anh Tuan expressed his opinion that there should be specific orientations and solutions in the coming time that are suitable to the actual situation and current tourism development trends to develop the capital's tourism to truly match its potential position in the coming time.
* Minh Anh, Government Portal/Hanoi Capital Page - thanglong.chinhphu.vn - Posted on October 19, 2024
Keywords: Hanoi,Capital tourism,spearhead economic sector,tourism products,