Organizing national tourism years, what for?

The purpose of organizing national tourism years in different localities is to advertise the hosting localities as the tourism destinations, which serve as the key events of the years to popularize Vietnam tourism images. However, the events have not brought the desired effects.
The Vietnam National Administration of Tourism VNAT has admitted that the biggest achievement of the national tourism years is… the monumental opening ceremony. Meanwhile, local authorities do not pay attention to develop their special tourism products to attract travelers.
National tourism years fail to fulfill their duties
According to travel firms, which can exactly measure the efficiency of the activities of organizing national tourism years based on the actual turnover and number of tourists, the event aims to popularize local tourism products and attract more travelers; therefore, the event should be organized in the localities with good tourism foundation that can serve as good destinations.
Meanwhile, in fact, Vietnam has been choosing localities for national tourism year events just after considering the political and historical events which relate to the localities. Besides, state officials simply think that it is necessary to organize the event in these or that localities in order to help develop the local economies, because the event would help attract more travelers.
As a result, the national tourism year events have not brought the desired effects, while local authorities, with poor infrastructure and bad conditions, still cannot attract more travelers though they have organized national tourism year events already.
Saigon tiep thi has quoted a state official as saying that local authorities believe that they have “fulfilled the task of organizing the national tourism year events” after they organized monumental opening ceremonies. Some local authorities believed that they successfully organized national tourism year ceremonies because they organized some trade fairs, sports tournaments, and local beauty contests…, which had no relations to the tourism development.
Especially, in the report of the Can Tho provincial authorities submitted to VNAT after the national tourism year was organized, one would not be able to read the figures about the efficiency of tourism development. The report only said about how to set up the steering committee, what were the members of the organization board, how to call for sponsorship, and what items should be in the opening ceremony.
What national tourism years bring?
The statistics show that the number of travelers to localities increases in the years where the localities host the national tourism year events. However, analysts have pointed out that the increase in the number of travelers to the localities is not enough to prove the efficiency of the tourism promotion events. The invited guests to the events alone accounted for a big proportion of the total travelers.
Meanwhile, in the localities, where the accommodation conditions remain poor such as Dien Bien, Nghe An, Thai Nguyen and Phu Yen, the invited travelers alone could fill up all the accommodation establishments in the localities.
Therefore, to date, Vietnam still does not have reliable figures about the numbers of tourists before and after the national tourism years are organize which can show the efficiency of the events.
Meanwhile, local authorities all complain that they have to run against the time to organize the events, because they have only 4-5 months to arrange everything. Therefore, organizing the events with no trouble should be considered a big success.
Travel firms say national tourism years bring nothing to local tourism. While the money spent is too much, the efficiency remains too modest. Thai Nguyen provincial authorities ordered to upgrade the provincial highway hurriedly, but the work was not completed, and travelers could not reach to excursion points. Phu Yen province advertised the Da Dia beautiful landscape, but tourists could not across the bridge to reach there in the tourism year.