Vietnam Tourism Branding for Welcoming 18 Millions Visitors in 2024
The positioning of Vietnam’s tourism brand according to Dr. Pham Ha, CEO of LuxGroup, can be understood as establishing a unique position for the brand to ensure that customers can recognize and differentiate it from other competing brands.
A country establishing a tourism brand is considered a key to unlocking opportunities to attract a wide range of tourists, especially international ones. A good destination brand not only builds trust and positive perceptions for tourists but also motivates them to decide to travel.
Positioning a brand is a crucial solution to enhance a nation’s tourism competitiveness, creating favorable conditions for developing specific products and implementing effective promotional plans without wastage. However, Vietnam’s efforts in positioning its tourism brand have been deemed somewhat ineffective.
Despite having diverse and strong tourism products, Vietnam still struggles to identify a leading tourism product with high competitiveness to highlight its brand. The slogans used for Vietnam’s tourism have been considered broad and lacking specificity, failing to demonstrate the unique values and differences compared to neighboring countries.
The lack of a clear strategy in positioning the national tourism brand has led to fragmented and ineffective promotion efforts, with tourism enterprises independently building destination images and marketing activities, resulting in a lack of cohesion.
Vietnam possesses abundant natural and cultural resources, providing favorable conditions for developing various forms of tourism. Yet, this richness makes it challenging for Vietnam to decisively select its strongest point to build its tourism brand.
To address this challenge, renowned marketing expert Philip Kotler suggested that Vietnam position itself as the “world’s kitchen,” leveraging its diverse and rich cuisine to gain a competitive edge.
Experts and entrepreneurs, such as Pham Ha, emphasize the need to position Vietnam’s tourism brand as a heritage destination due to its vast heritage assets, which are attractive to both domestic and international tourists.
The focus on cultural tourism is evident in initiatives like the National Tourism Branding Project, aiming to position Vietnam’s cultural tourism brand based on its unique cultural values, heritage, and culinary significance, creating distinct, high-value tourism products well-received by the market.
However, executing these suggestions and directions requires a coherent action plan based on thorough research—a strategic decision-making process essential to effectively position and build the national tourism brand. Particularly in the context of the global tourism industry returning to square one due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the opportunity will belong to countries that leverage their strengths to assert their competitiveness in the tourism market.
