Index on Tourism Competitiveness of Tourist Destinations in Vietnam

Vietnam is endowed with spectacular and extensive natural and cultural resources, making tourism potentially one of the most important sectors for job creation, growth and shared prosperity, with a high proportion of employment for women, ethnic minorities and youth.

The tourism sector has recently experienced significant growth throughout the country and in developed regions such as the north-west, the central coast and the Mekong Delta. The Vietnamese Government's strategy for tourism development takes advantage of its outstanding natural, cultural and historical resources, human resources, positive investment climate and geographical location close to several major foreign tourist markets.

Now, in order to help Vietnamese destinations to develop in a sustainable manner and to improve the local experience for travellers, a Competitiveness Index for Tourist Destinations has been proposed to evaluate each location based on selected indicators.

The tourism industry has a great story to tell and the development of indicators can help destinations tell their story more convincingly and gain more support from the government. It can identify areas where it needs to improve, set performance benchmarks and become more sustainable. By measuring its performance, the tourism industry can ensure its central role in policy-making to ensure the competitiveness of destinations.

Kai Partale has been commissioned by Aecom to support the strengthening of regional competitiveness by developing and testing a model for a "Vietnam Tourism Competitiveness Index" to be presented at the Travel & Tourism Summit 2019 in Hanoi.