Visa and Tourism Advisory Board join forces to attract international visitors to Vietnam
12/09/2019
Visa, the world’s leader in digital payments, and the Vietnam Tourism Advisory Board (TAB), have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to work together to encourage more tourists to visit Vietnam, as well as improve the traveling experience while they’re here.
Vietnam is one of the top ten fastest growing tourism markets in the world, with the country seeing 637 trillion VND gross revenue1 from the industry in 2018 alone. Despite this, the industry faces some major challenges, such as underdeveloped infrastructure, human resourcing and skills issues, and strong competition from neighboring tourist destinations. While Vietnam has been rapidly expanding its acceptance of electronic payments, there are still many popular tourist establishments country-wide where travelers can only pay with cash.
Visa Country Manager for Vietnam and Laos, Dang Tuyet Dung, said: “We’re very happy to be working with the Vietnam Tourism Advisory Board on this project to increase visitation to Vietnam and help bolster tourism revenues for the country. By sharing insights on international visitor spending behaviors across their travel journey in Vietnam, we hope to assist TAB in developing an even more targeted approach to growing the tourism industry. In order for Vietnam to maximize tourist expenditure moving forward, it’s incredibly important that we have the right payment infrastructure in place, especially at frequently visited locations such as hotels, restaurants, tour operators, or night markets. Optimizing communications network of Visa global footprint to increase tourists’ awareness of the tourism services in Vietnam will help TAB to be more proactive in capturing the inbound tourism flows.”
According to research conducted by Visa, more than 280 million households will be travelling internationally by 2025 and about two in five of these will be households in the Asia Pacific region2. Many tourists have healthy travel budgets to spend while they’re enjoying their holidays, but at the same time, they don’t want to carry the necessary amount of local currency in order to do so.
Tran Trong Kien, Chairman of the Vietnam Tourism Advisory Board, said: “Vietnam Tourism Advisory Board is a group of leading industry stakeholders committed to supporting the sustainable development of tourism in Vietnam as well as the Vietnam National Administration of Tourism (VNAT). Apart from providing advices to tourism related policies, we work closely with our local and international partners to help promoting Vietnam through multiple platforms. We are very happy to work with Visa and be able to discuss their insights, computing power and international best practices. The MOU is a good start and we look forward to a mutually beneficial relationship for sustainable tourism growth in Vietnam.”
In working together to promote Vietnam’s major tourist drawcards, such as its countless scenic locales, culinary experiences, and its historical and cultural sites, Visa will work to draw more inbound tourists through incentives for cardholders such as offers on accommodation, privileged access to events, and special dining deals. Visa will also seek to provide tourism operators with data on national and international tourism spending, helping these businesses to make more informed decisions about how they can increase their revenues from travelers.
1 http://vietnamtourism.gov.vn/english/index.php/statistic/receipts
About Visa Inc.
Visa Inc. (NYSE: V) is the world’s leader in digital payments. Our mission is to connect the world through the most innovative, reliable and secure payment network - enabling individuals, businesses and economies to thrive. Our advanced global processing network, VisaNet, provides secure and reliable payments around the world, and is capable of handling more than 65,000 transaction messages a second. The company’s relentless focus on innovation is a catalyst for the rapid growth of connected commerce on any device, and a driving force behind the dream of a cashless future for everyone, everywhere. As the world moves from analog to digital, Visa is applying our brand, products, people, network and scale to reshape the future of commerce. For more information, visit About Visa, visa.com/blog and @VisaNews.