Vietnam plans to spend VND16 billion (US$970,000) advertising the image of its tourism on international news networks in the rest of the year, said an official.
Vu The Binh, director of the travel department of the Vietnam National Administration of Tourism, told the Daily on Tuesday that tourism publicity programs would be aired on famous networks such as CNN, Discovery and those in Japan and South Korea.
"This is the first time we have got such a big budget for advertising tourism on international television networks," he said.
Early last October, Vietnam carried out its first tourism promotion program on CNN in the Asian region. The 30-second every night spot over three months was mainly for promoting tourist attractions like the World Heritage-listed sites of Halong Bay, Hoi an town and Hue as well as HCMC.
The program cost US$290,750, financed by the Government.
Tourism companies have seen a positive impact of this program on the sector. Increasing publicity for the tourism sector outside the country is one of the important methods to attract foreign visitors, they said.
However, they said, the tourism authority should focus on a strategy that could run well on limited funding.
Nguyen Van Tan, chairman of JTB-TNT Co., said there should be a long-term plan for promoting publicity on international networks to always remind tourists of the country's tourism image.
"The tourism administration has to ask the Government for funds to implement promotion programs on an annual basis. If the Government declines this proposal, the programs will fail. So, we should need a long-term plan," he said.
But advertising on international networks is expensive, so business circles have proposed boosting promotion events at home as they will be more cost-effective.
They said organizing international tourism events, and familiarization trips for foreign media organizations and tour buyers in the country was also a good way to polish the sector's image internationally.
They said events like Miss Universe 2008, which ended on Monday, were good enough to promote Vietnam's tourism.
"The Miss Universe helped Vietnam introduce its image to the rest of the world and travel companies sell tours to international visitors to join the event. Some Japanese guests booked Vietnam tours via our company to watch the pageant," said Nguyen Van Tran, general director of APEX Vietnam Co., Ltd.
(Source: SGT)
Tag: Asia , Halong , Hcm , Hoi An , Hue , International , Japan , Japanese , Tour , Tourism , Tourist , Travel , Vietnam , Vietnam Tour Vietnam to spend VND16bil on tourism publicity
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