The bottleneck in attracting tourism investment
According to Lao Dong's records in the Central Highlands, many people and businesses want to do tourism but are not equipped with enough legal knowledge, and are stuck in planning work... For example, businesses have invested hundreds of billions of VND in Dak Glung Waterfall Tourist Area in Quang Tam Commune, Tuy Duc District, Dak Nong Province, but have encountered many obstacles due to impractical planning, not meeting the needs of tourists, and infrastructure difficulties. This project is located in an area with limited telecommunications infrastructure and severely damaged roads.
These are not the minority cases. Even large enterprises find it difficult to avoid legal barriers when planning projects, bidding...
From the investor’s perspective, Ms. Le Thi Thu Ha - Chairwoman of Tan Phu Tourism Company - said that the first difficulty in investing in tourism development is the planning issue. According to her, localities do not have clear plans and consistent orientations for long-term economic development of the province.
“Every province has a transformed economic structure that increases the proportion of services, but the planning is not in sync with the proposed economic structure. During the implementation process, not every locality seriously implements it, but there are often shifts and changes. Therefore, even though we are determined to stick to that plan from beginning to end, we still do not have enough confidence that the plan will not change,” Ms. Thu Ha shared.
She cited the fact that tourism real estate is developing rapidly when there is an excess of villas, condos and shophouses in some localities. This reduces service quality and pushes room prices down to a level that is not commensurate with the star rating standards of many projects.
The investor of the high-end tourist area Emeralda Resort & Spa (Ninh Binh) cited that when setting up projects in many localities, the unit encountered obstacles in the bidding process. The legal framework was not synchronized, causing difficulties for businesses in obtaining permits and implementing projects, which slowed down the implementation process and increased investment costs.
Untangling policy bottlenecks
Deputy Director of the Vietnam National Tourism Administration Pham Van Thuy said that there are still some shortcomings and limitations such as lack of attraction strategy, no specific preferential policies and incentives for investors in difficult but potential areas.
Many localities with tourism potential have not attracted investment and have not been able to promote their unique values. Limited transport infrastructure to access many potential tourist destinations discourages investors, many investment projects are slow to progress or are unfinished...
"To ensure quality and attract more investment in tourism development in the new situation, many barriers and bottlenecks need to be removed," said Mr. Thuy.
According to Ms. Le Thi Thu Ha, first of all, it is necessary to perfect the legal and policy framework, through streamlining the licensing process, preferential tax and land policies; standardizing evaluation criteria and awarding stars according to international standards.
In addition, localities need to upgrade infrastructure by investing more heavily in transportation, electricity, water, telecommunications, etc. However, it is important to plan destinations with long-term plans and control construction density. Finally, she recommended strengthening public-private partnerships and improving cooperation between the government and businesses in tourism development.
Discussing solutions to promote tourism development, Dr. Nguyen Anh Tuan - Institute for Tourism Development Research (ITDR) - said: "There needs to be an open foreign investment attraction policy, an attractive investment environment, especially the readiness and initiative of localities in promoting tourism investment attraction, facilitating administrative procedures in granting tourism investment certificates...".
According to the report on “New trends in tourism development investment in Vietnam” by ITDR, any locality that is proactive, determined, ready to invite and create the most favorable conditions for investors within the legal framework, especially in handling procedures for granting investment certificates, handing over clean land and accompanying incentive mechanisms, that locality attracts many large-scale and quality tourism investment projects. From there, it significantly changes the appearance of the destination, bringing important advantages in competing to attract tourists.
According to the Institute of Development Strategy - Ministry of Planning and Investment, up to now, there have been over 1,000 tourism projects with investment capital of tens of thousands of billions of VND invested by domestic investors in many different forms and scales, mainly investing in resort areas and infrastructure in coastal and mountainous areas with large investment capital.
Large domestic corporations have built many large-scale tourism complexes in Sa Pa, Ha Long, Sam Son, Da Nang, Binh Dinh, Khanh Hoa, Phu Quoc... contributing significantly to improving the quality of the tourism infrastructure system.
During this period, many projects of some strategic investors with quite large investment capital appeared such as: Vinpearl Phu Quoc (17,000 billion VND), Phu Quoc cable car (10,000 billion VND); Vinpearl Quy Nhon (4,500 billion VND), Vinpearl Ha Long (1,200 billion VND), Ba Na cable car (over 6,000 billion VND), Muong Hoa - Fansipan cable car (4,500 billion VND), Bai Chay cable car (over 5,000 billion VND)... The above investment projects contributed to the formation of a number of tourism products with strong brands and high competitiveness, attracting tourists.
In terms of investment, the focus is on investment in developing the accommodation system. This is a source of investment capital entirely from the private sector. By the end of 2023, the country will have 38,000 tourist accommodation establishments with more than 780,000 rooms, an increase of 3,000 establishments compared to 2022. There will be 247 5-star tourist accommodation establishments with 80,896 rooms (an increase of 26 establishments with 6,579 rooms) and 368 4-star tourist accommodation establishments with 50,716 rooms (an increase of 28 establishments with 5,014 rooms).
The Institute of Development Strategy - Ministry of Planning and Investment assessed that, with the attention of the Government, the tourism industry has attracted and mobilized a large and diverse source of investment capital for tourism development, including investment capital from the State budget, domestic private investment, foreign direct investment (FDI)... The form of public-private partnership in tourism development investment has also been implemented, bringing positive effects to promote the development of the tourism industry.
