Hanoi’s Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism said in the near future, it is placing high hopes on making substantial gains in attracting Japanese tourists to the City, along with the expansion of tourists from other Asian and Eastern European countries.

For Japan alone, Hanoi is paying particular attention to increasing the quality of tourism products to serve the Japanese market as it is a large market that places great emphasis on quality, department officials said. Japanese love to travel and each year an estimated 20 million Japanese holiday abroad. So far, the number of Japanese travelling to Viet Nam, and Hanoi specifically, is a miniscule proportion of the total, leaving ample room for growth, they said.

Additionally, Japanese travellers are tending to look for other destinations to replace China.

Hanoi and the Viet Nam Tourism Association in Tokyo are cooperating in a joint effort to market tourism through the Japan Association of Travel Agents (JATA). They are also jointly advertising reciprocal travel packages between Hanoi and Tokyo to attract Japanese tourists to the city.

For other markets, Hanoi will actively take part in tourism fairs, tourism promotion conferences, welcome the Familiarisation Trip (FAM) delegations, and make tourism surveys in the capital city and surrounding areas.

The capital city is actively promoting tourism on prestigious websites such as Trip Advisor, Smart Travel Asia, and Google and cooperating with the Viet Nam Tourism Association to organize the Viet Nam International Travel Mart (VITM).

Activities are also underway to comprehensively stimulate demand via marketing efforts in hotels, restaurants, shopping centres, and areas of transporting guests.