At the meeting, the Ambassadors spoke highly of vital role of tourism in Viet Nam’s policy of foreign affairs. The two Ambassadors hoped that VNAT would enhance cooperation with Vietnamese Embassies in France and UK, to impulse promotion activities to lure more French, British tourists and also European tourists, as well as to attract more foreign investment into tourism sector.

To ensure effectiveness of the promotion, the Ambassadors suggested to set up a close coordination between the two sides; encourage the involvement of localities, tourism businesses, airlines, overseas Vietnamese communities, overseas students. Especially, Vietnamese Cultural Center in France will play an important role in pushing up exchange and promotion of Vietnamese culture and tourism in France and Europe.

They proposed to coordinate in organizing famtrips for French and British tourism businesses, media agencies to explore Viet Nam tourism; organizing festivals to introduce about Vietnamese cuisines; launching Viet Nam tourism ads on local media channels; taking part in cultural events; organizing training programs on tourism development experiences.

According to General Director Nguyen Van Tuan, France, the UK and Germany have become leading source markets in Europe of Viet Nam tourism sector with high spending and long stays. He appreciated the concentration of the Ambassadors on tourism sector and agreed to close coordinate with the Embassies to deploy promotional activities in France and UK in the coming time.

In 2013, Viet Nam welcomed more than 200,000 French arrivals and 180,000 British arrivals. In the first 7 months of 2014, French tourists to Viet Nam reached over 130,000 arrivals and British tourists were over 120,000 arrivals. The increased cooperation between the tourism sector and Vietnamese Embassies in France and UK would promote enhancing effectiveness of Vietnamese culture and tourism in the two important markets and Europe also.

Thanh Tam