Hoan Kiem Lake, situated at the heart of Hanoi city, serves as a nexus linking the city’s renowned historic quarters

Could you please tell us more about the operating situation, and some achievements and remarkable events of the Hanoi tourism industry in 2023?

Recently, with the support and direction of authorities at all levels, the effort of service business units, the participation of the residential community and the innovative thinking and actions of authorities, the tourism industry of Hanoi City made many impressive outcomes and strong breakthroughs.

Tourist arrivals to Hanoi reached 24 million, up 27% from 2022 and equal to 83% that in 2019. Of the sum, the city welcomed over 4 million international visitors (with 2.82 million international visitors staying), up 138.1% over 2022 and equal to 57% in 2019, and 20 million domestic visitors, up 16% over 2022 and equal to 91% in 2019. Total tourist revenue grossed VND87.65 trillion, up 45.5% over 2022 and equal to 84.4% in 2019.

In addition, Hanoi’s tourism brand has been constantly consolidated with enhanced reputation and image on the international tourism map. For the second time in a row, Hanoi was honored to be awarded the "World's Leading City Tourism Destination for Short-term Vacations" Award by the World Travel Awards Organization and a series of awards in 2023 such as Asia’s Leading City Destination, Asia's Leading City Break Destination, Asia's Leading City Tourist Board, Emerging Culinary City and most recent World's Best Golf City Destination 2023 by World Golf Awards.

How do you assess the current status of Hanoi's tourism development, its strengths and limitations?

Currently, product development is highly promoted by destinations and travel businesses. Many new, attractive, unique and branded tourism products have been built and welcomed by tourists, including night tourism at Hoa Lo relics, Temple of Literature and Thang Long Imperial Citadel; and community tourism in Ba Vi. Tourism communication and promotion is also prioritized by governments at all levels with large investment resources.

In addition, Hanoi has a lot of well-trained professional tourism human resources with a good command of foreign language and professional skills, enabling it to make achievements in tourism digital transformation.

However, the tourism sector still faces a number of weaknesses. For example, accommodation facilities and tourism service facilities are not synchronized and their quality is of the same class. The city lacks high-quality hotels (ranked 4- or 5-star) for large international events and high-spending tourists, tourist areas, entertainment complexes, shopping centers, weekend resorts, and national and international theme parks. Some tourism service facilities have not yet reopened since the COVID-19 epidemic. Besides, there is a shortage of personnel in accommodation service business.

The tourism industry of Hanoi is carrying out many consistent solutions to improve competitiveness in the coming time.

The captivating tour of the Temple of Literature is garnering considerable interest from tourists

What are those solutions?

First, restructuring the city's tourism industry into a modern, professional, branded and highly competitive economic sector; fostering the development of domestic tourism and international tourism, paying attention to the development of agricultural and rural tourism and other types of tourism with local strengths such as MICE tourism, ecotourism and leisure tourism.

Second, encouraging organizations, individuals and communities to participate in tourism development; stimulating public-private partnership models in investment and destination management; promoting the performance of tourism authorities in building new mechanisms and policies on managing tourism activities, investing in infrastructure development for key tourist areas and tourist attractions in the city.

Third, boosting innovation, creativity and information technology application in tourism, with a focus on digital transformation; firmly building the city's role as the national tourism center, the nucleus and driving force to reinforce tourism development cooperation with other provinces and cities nationwide and in the world.

Thank you very much!