Quang Ninh opens tourism office in Jeju Quang Ninh opens tourism office in Jeju    The northern province of Quang Ninh will open a tourism office on Jeju Island in South Korea to promote its image and lure more Korean travelers under a cooperation agreement between the two localities. Under the agreement between provincial Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism and the Culture, Tourism and Sports Bureau of the Jeju Province signed lately, both sides will jointly develop new tourism products and promote mutual tourism services. Lam Van Vinh, director of Quang Ninh Province’s Tourism Promotion Center, said Jeju will support Quang Ninh in opening its tourism office on the Korean island and help with personnel training. The two sides both have famous tourist attractions recognized as the new world wonder sites, making it easier for the bilateral tourism collaboration. “Jeju and Quang Ninh will be working more closely on the establishment of the office. As the number of South Korean visiting Quang Ninh has been on the rise, we want to further approach these travelers thanks to the office’s opening,” he said. Quang Ninh already made plans to open tourism offices in Japan and South Korea but the province has decided to delay opening the office in Japan due to tough market conditions and high operational expenses. Therefore, Quang Ninh is only working on the plan on opening the office in South Korea, one of the top ten visitor-generating markets for Vietnam that the province is trying to tap more strongly. South Korean arrivals to Vietnam have posted strong growth, with more than 700,000 tourists from this market coming to Vietnam last year and over 562,000 in January-September. Quang Ninh welcomed more than 5.7 million visitors in the first eight months of the year, up 12% year-on-year, with over 1.6 million being foreigners, the provincial tourism department reports. Travel firm acquires private airlines in Vietnam Thien Minh Tourism JSC (TMG) recently announced that it has bought an 89% stake in Hai Au Airlines, a private Vietnamese airline. TMG said on October 14 that it would start operation of the airline next year with a registered capital of VND60 billion (USD2.84 million). TMG’s leaders said they would buy two seaplanes that would be put into operation in April, 2014. The 12-seat seaplanes would be used for sightseeing on Ha Long Bay and provide air taxi and other services upon passengers’ demand. The services are estimated to cost between VND2.5 million and VND3 million (USD11.4-USD142), depending on the flight timetables. A flight would last from 15 to 50 minutes with the expected passengers mainly being foreign tourists. Currently, private airlines in Vietnam are facing fierce competition due to the monopoly of the state-owned Vietnam Airlines. In 2009, Indochina Airlines was the fifth airline in Vietnam to halt operations due to financial difficulties. Indochina Airlines was the second private airlines licensed in Vietnam after Vietjet Air. TMG also owns Victoria hotel chains. Schools, travel businesses urged to work hand in hand Tour guides play a decisive role in the success of the tourism industry. However, Vietnam’s current workforce, even those trained in tourism schools, have not yet been able to meet the real work requirements. Experts have attempted to find a solution to Vietnam’s tourism human resources. Report by the Vietnam Business Forum. Before becoming the CEO of the Viet Media Travel - a well-known travel agency in Saigon - Tran Van Long had worked as a tour guide for more than 10 years. Speaking from experiences, he confirmed that the success of a tour largely depended on the guide. Particularly, the guide decides at least 50-60 percent of a tour’s success, because in case customers are unhappy, if the tour guide can be flexible and smooth they still can salvage the situation, of course unless the operator is the one at fault of the service, not following their commitment. In short, the role of tour guides is extremely important. But Long himself admitted that right now, most Vietnamese guides still do not possess the required capability. Reality has shown that current guides are lacking a comprehensive knowledge, they do not have practical knowledge as well as tourism skills necessary to the guiding job. When coming to a tourist attraction, they don’t know how to introduce and often speak out of topic. "If this situation continues, the visitors will be leaving Vietnam for good," he warned. Nguyen Thi Hoa, HR Director of the Sofitel Plaza Hanoi, said that the human resources of Vietnam’s hotel industry today are also not from tourism schools but graduate from business, trade or foreign language schools. That’s the reason why the management positions of 4-5 star hotels are usually held by foreigners. According to Dr Tran Thi Minh Hoa, Dean of Tourism Department of University of Social Sciences and Humanities, the reason is the difference between training and actual working due to the nature of Vietnam’s training, which usually focuses on theory rather than practical exercises. There’s still a common misconception in Vietnam that undergraduate training is academic in nature. However, some majors like tourism str more of vocational, therefore it requires practical knowledge, language and professional skills as well as the ability to cope with all kinds of situations and incidents that could happen while working. According to Vu An Dan, Associate Dean of Tourism Department of Hanoi Open University, to bridge the gap between training and working, a close collaboration between tourism schools and travel businesses is a must. The department is highly regarded for its quality, but it, as most of tourism businesses, is well aware that there still exists a wide gap between actual work and training that is in need of bridging, including lack of practice, in-depth cultural and social knowledge. It’s important for the time ahead to build a plan to improve students’ practical knowledge by working with Tourism Association and tourist companies to provide students necessary practical knowledge. Experts believe that collaboration between schools and travel businesses to change the curriculum toward more practical exercise is a right move because it will help students gain more skills and experiences to be able to meet the requirements of actual work. To solve the problem of scarce and inadequate human resources in tourism industry, Pham Tien Dung, Director of the Golden Tour & Convention, said that in the short term, training facilities should strengthen collaboration with businesses to improve the quality of tourism human resources from the early stages of training and practice to recruitment. There ashould also be a common standard which is modern, updated to international standards, to gradually resolve the current situation that each school follows a different curriculum. Only when graduates are able to meet all the requirements of actual job can the national tourism industry develop into the next level. Luxury hotel rooms auctioned on Facebook Dulich Deluxe, a luxury-hotel booking service, has become the first in Viet Nam to auction rooms on Facebook. It has a portfolio of hundreds of four- and five-star hotels and resorts at major tourist destinations like HCM City, Ha Noi, Da Nang, Nha Trang, Mui Ne, Hoi An, Ha Long, and Hue. The hotels included in the auctions are Villa del Sol Beach Villa & Spa in Phan Thiet, Golden Sand Hoi An Resort & Spa, and An Hoa Residence in Long Hai, and the bidding starts at VND50,000 (US$2.5). A range of other hotels and cruises throughout the country will also be auctioned at . 31 million domestic tourists reported in Jan-Sept There were up to 31 million domestic tourists recorded in the January-September period, up 11% year-on-year and higher than the expectations of tourism officials. According to Hoang Thi Diep, deputy head of the Vietnam National Administration of Tourism (VNAT), VNAT has received reports of provinces and cities nationwide. Coastal destinations are still the favored options with a high number of domestic tourists flocking to the beaches. Danang, Khanh Hoa, Ninh Thuan and Quang Nam are among the localities seeing high growth rates with 20.5%, 16%, 30.6% and 30.2% respectively. “We expect to have 35 million for the whole year but the figure has amounted to 31 million. The number of domestic tourists will be higher than expected,” said Diep. Due to economic difficulties, many enterprises have launched travel stimulus programs and cooperated with enterprises offering transport and accommodation services to offer low prices to tourists. Although customers are still carefully selecting tours and their spending by buying short and economical tours, the number of tourists has still increased. “The number of tourists at our company has risen by an average of 10% from last year’s same period and the number traveling by air has increased by over 30% thanks to several promotions,” said Tran The Dung, deputy director of Young Generation Travel Co. According to a report of enterprises joining the stimulus program carried out by the HCMC Tourism Association and Vietnam Airlines, over ten travel enterprises sold package air tours to over 23,000 tourists during the four months of promotion, up 46% from last year’s figures. Such promotional tours helped tourists reduce costs by 36-40% compared to normal tours. Besides, some enterprises in HCMC that are cooperating with VietJetAir said that there were 1,623 tourists buying discounted package tours. Russian airline opens direct air route to Cam Ranh Russia’s Nordwind Airlines will open a direct Nizhny Novgorod - Cam Ranh Bay route as of October 25, according to the Voice of Russia. Nizhny Novgorod International Airport Joint Stock Company’s CEO Alexander Sinelnikov was quoted as saying there were no direct flights from Nizhny Novgorod to Vietnam before even at the start of the tourism season in October. Tourists can fly directly from Nizhny Novgorod to the coast of the East Sea in just ten hours. Vietnam Airlines offers ‘Golden Moments’ program The national flag carrier, Vietnam Airlines is offering the 3rd ‘Golden Moments’ promotional program on some domestic routes since October 15. Accordingly, one-way tickets for routes including Hanoi-Hue will be VND499,000; HCMC-Hue/Quy Nhon/Phu Quoc at VND699,000; Hanoi-Buon Ma Thuot/Quy Nhon at VND1,099,000. These special prices will be applicable for flights which will be departing from October 18-December 15. Earlier, Vietnam Airlines had offered a discount on return tickets for flights from Hanoi, Vinh and Hai Phong to Ho Chi Minh City at VND799,000; from Hue, Da Nang and Quy Nhon to HCMC at VND599,000; from Buon Ma Thuot, Nha Trang and Phu Quoc to HCMC at VND399,000 (not including taxes). These special prices will be applicable for flights to HCMC from January 25-30, 2014 and February 3-10, 2014 for flights departing from HCMC. The promotional program will apply from October 8 to December 31. The national carrier will give free tickets to children of passengers who buy tickets on routes from HCMC to Hanoi, Hai Phong, Vinh, Da Nang, Nha Trang and Phu Quoc from October 8 to December 15.  Flights departing from HCMC on January 17-24; and trips to HCMC on January 31-February 2 and February 11-16 will also enjoy this promotion. Binh Thuan builds friendly, safe tourism environment The central province of Binh Thuan is becoming an attractive tourist attraction for domestic and international tourists, especially those from Russia, China, Germany and the Republic of Korea. This is attributed to the locality’s efforts to build a friendly and safe tourism environment. In the first nine months of this year, Binh Thuan received over 2.5 million tourists, earning more than 3.6 trillion VND (196.2 million USD). This is the result of the province’s investment in developing its tourism sector, regarding tourism as a key industry to promote local socio-economic development. The province has spared no efforts to remove beggars and peddlers from key tourist attractions, asking businesses and households that provide tourism services to say no to raising prices irrationally. In spite of unfavourable transport facilities such as the lack of an airport and seaport, Binh Thuan has seen a steady increase in the number of international tourists since 2006. In the coming time, the province will contribute greatly to Vietnam’s target of a two percent annual increase in the number of Russian tourists, hoping to receive 350,000 visitors from the country by 2015. Source: SGT/SGGP/VNA/VNS/VOV/ND