HANOI: Viet Nam is striving to improve the quality of its tourism services in order to attract more holidaymakers from both home and abroad and to speed up the development of the country's tourism industry.

Comprehensive quality management, especially improving the quality of travel, guide, accommodation and transport services, are policy guidelines for the development of Viet Nam's tourism industry, a senior official of the Viet Nam National Administration of Tourism (VNAT) told Xinhua recently.

"Regarding quality management, Viet Nam has two important policies on restructuring State-owned tourist companies, and licensing international tour operators, which has created a healthy competitive environment among travel agencies," said VNAT Deputy Head Pham Tu.

Viet Nam's tourism industry now involves practically all economic sectors, including State-run, collective, private, joint venture and wholly foreign-owned companies, with a total of 230 international tour operators and 1,680 local ones.

To guarantee the quality of services offered by travel agencies, VNAT will inspect local and foreign tour operators in the country's two biggest cities, Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, early next month.

They are to undergo inspection in terms of employment of guides and payment of a risk-hedging deposit, said the official.

"For international tour operators, they must meet three main requirements: having a good business scheme, employing at least three tourist guides with professional cards, and deposit 250 million Vietnamese dong (VND) (US$16,130) in a bank, which will be used to compensate customers in case of risks or complaints of poor services," said Duong Xuan Hoi, deputy head of VNAT's Tourism Division.

Domestic tour operators have to deposit only 50 million VND (US$3,230), he said, adding that those who violate regulations on employment of guides and compulsory deposits can be fined as much as 10 million VND (US$645).

VNAT has also tightened the management of tourist guides. It has only issued professional cards to a small number of guides, and will implement a 12-million-euro programme later this month or early next month to train staff for Viet Nam's tourism industry.

"The European Union-funded programme will last until 2008, turning out 3,975 highly-qualified guides, cooks, tour and hotel staff.

They are to experience European-standard training courses, and certificates given to them will be recognized not only in Viet Nam but also in other Southeast Asian countries," Phung Duong, deputy head of VNAT's International Co-operation Division, told Xinhua.

As for accommodation, Viet Nam's relevant bodies will frequently inspect the quality of hotels, guest houses and villas nationwide with a total of 74,300 rooms. Generally, they do not force all facilities to follow the same construction or interior decoration style.

But, in certain cases, in the ancient town of Hoi An in central Quang Nam Province for instance, hotels can not be higher than five stories and none is permitted in the old quarter.

Besides hotel rooms, coaches and cars used to transport tourists have been upgraded gradually.

"Many transport services are provided by co-operatives, joint ventures and private companies," Tu said.

In addition to an upgrading of tourism infrastructure and personnel training, Viet Nam has made many efforts to make life easier for tourists.

The government has recently asked the tourism industry to work closely with other industries and localities to ensure social order, security and environmental hygiene at places of interest.

Another important policy which is hailed by foreign tourists is the end of discrimination between local people and foreigners when paying for admission to tourist attractions.

With better policies on tourism management and development, Viet Nam expects 2 to 2.2 million international arrivals in 2003. The government planned to host 3 to 3.5 million foreign visitors and to generate tourism revenues of more than US$2 billion in 2005.

Xinhua

(China Daily 09/20/2003 page4)