Attending the seminar were Deputy General Directors of VNAT Ha Van Sieu and Ngo Hoai Chung; representatives of the Embassy of Indonesia in Viet Nam; Indonesian FAM delegates; representatives of tourism enterprises and media agencies.
Speaking at the seminar, Deputy Director General Ha Van Sieu emphasized the positive cooperation between the two countries including tourism field. Viet Nam has identified Indonesia in particular and ASEAN countries in general as important tourism markets.
Thanks to strengthened air connectivity and current favorable conditions, Viet Nam and Indonesia will foster tourism cooperation commensurate with potential of the two sides. The two countries should focus on promoting tourism, supporting each other to organize events to showcase tourism products and provide information about the country and people to tourists.
In recent years, tourist exchange between Viet Nam and Indonesia has been increasing: 95,000 in 2012; 100,000 in 2013 and in 11 months of 2014, Viet Nam welcomed nearly 64,000 Indonesian tourist arrivals. Since 4 December 2003, Viet Nam has exempted visa for Indonesian and Indonesia has also exempted visa for Vietnamese since 01 February 2004 which helped boost tourists flow between the two sides.
According to representative of Indonesian FAM delegation, Mr. Tedjo Iskandar, total population of Indonesia in 2012 was 245 million, ranked 4th in the world. Islam is the most popular religion in Indonesia (87,2% of population). According to the Central Bank of Indonesia, 61% of population was in middle income class, 17% in high income class. Indonesian tourists highly appreciated some destinations in Viet Nam namely Ha Noi, Ho Chi Minh City, Ninh Binh, Ha Long Bay, Hoi An… Most of Indonesian tourists love shopping, comfortable buses with wifi, Indonesian speaking tour guides, fried dishes… In the coming time, Viet Nam should invest in developing infrastructure, tourism products and service and enhancing Indonesian speaking guides training to attract more Indonesian tourists to Viet Nam.
At the seminar, representatives of enterprises also exchanged experiences in doing tourism business and coordination among management agencies, travel businesses, hotels and transporters for increasing tourists flow between the two sides.