neighboring areas to quickly deploy and exploit tourism. That also explains why Bo Keo tourism industry is still young in terms of human resources, lacks management experience, and its ability to compete with other countries and domestic provinces in tourism is still weak. As a result, the number of international visitors to Bo Keo is still too small compared to domestic provinces and neighboring foreign provinces.
In the context of promoting openness and regional and global economic integration, some tourism policies are not yet synchronized, slow to be concretized or lack feasibility conditions. The implementation of tourism development plans in coordination with other related sectors is not good.
Investment in developing tourist areas by the State and private sector is still low, many tourist areas and spots have not been exploited. In addition, the work of embellishing and restoring newly started tourist spots is still very slow compared to the requirements of tourism development, some tourist spots are deteriorating the fastest, especially natural and historical tourist spots.
Tourism products are not really diverse, the types of entertainment and recreation areas are still few, not creating attraction to prolong the stay of tourists. On the other hand, the Province has not yet oriented and built tourism products with local characteristics.
- Limited capacity for trade promotion and tourism promotion
Tourism promotion activities are not diverse, and tourism information is not provided, especially tourist destinations are not clear. Although tourism promotion activities have been very active in the past, they have not been deep and wide, especially in the potential tourist market. The improvement of websites and tourism news programs from the central and local levels has not kept up with the demands of tourists, and the forms of activities both domestically and internationally have not been diversified. Tourism advertisements and marketing are not diverse, rich and attractive. Promotion and advertising work has not been carried out professionally.
There are few tourist billboards in Lao, and there are even foreign billboards in Lao, causing Bo Keo's tourism culture to be affected and lose its national identity.
- Sanitation and environmental protection work
Sanitation and environmental protection have not received due attention. Environmental sanitation in tourism business activities has not been ensured, business order in some tourist spots and picnic areas has not been well managed, and erratic service prices have left a bad impression on tourists.
There is still excessive use of pesticides, plant protection drugs, and food preservatives, leading to low levels of food safety for people and tourists.
Travel companies are still weak in management experience, have not yet built unique products, and tourism programs are not yet diverse; at the same time, they have not promoted market research activities and product advertising.
3.3.4. Causes of limitations
Social awareness of tourism, especially the awareness of management levels about the role of tourism in socio-economic development, still has some limitations. Most people still think that tourism is a recreational activity for a few rich people, but they do not realize that tourism is a service industry that exploits local advantages to bring profits to the community (both local and people). Therefore, the attention and investment in building and developing tourism is still low.
Some departments, branches, local authorities, especially the leaders, have not yet promoted their roles and responsibilities in the timely implementation of tourism planning and policies. The policy to attract investment in tourism has been implemented slowly. The documents and policies calling for investment of the Province compared to reality are too slow because of the lack of funds for operation and the human resources of the tourism industry are lacking in both quantity and quality. There are tourism development projects that have been planned and approved but have not been implemented. Most of the tourism investment projects are in the implementation stage.
Although over time, the authorities of Bo Keo province have paid great attention to tourism development, considering it one of the key economic sectors in the overall socio-economic development strategies. However, the implementation of tourism development
have not been specified. For example, the province has a plan to hold the first scientific conference to encourage investment in October 2016 and the second scientific conference to attract investment in sustainable tourism in February 2017.
Regulations and policies to attract investment in tourism have not kept up with the new situation and are even slow to implement. Investment incentives are not attractive to investors. In fact, when implementing activities, policy mechanisms are still arbitrary and inconsistent.
Coordination and linkage between departments, branches and localities to support and promote tourism development have not been implemented synchronously and drastically.
The major limitation affecting the capacity of State management of tourism activities in Bo Keo province is the lack of uniformity in the system of mechanisms and measures as State management tools for tourism activities, which do not cover the entire scope of impact of the provincial government on tourism business activities in the economy. Many regulations are still general, or only outline basic legal principles that have not really become specific regulatory tools for behavior in the organization, operation and business of tourism.
The clarification and concretization of central legal documents for implementation are not high. The drafting of current documents in Bo Keo is mainly assigned to relevant government agencies to take charge of drafting, leading to the phenomenon that these regulations are often individual without being linked according to general principles.
Along with the socio-economic development and international economic integration, the tourism industry of the province has been lacking in the number of staff, the quality of tourism activities of this team is quite weak. Even the staff in charge of tourism do not have a deep understanding of tourism, their role in tourism activities compared to neighboring countries and neighboring provinces. Some staff working in state management lack tourism or related majors, and their foreign language proficiency does not meet the requirements. Even recruited staff with any level of qualification are just used and rarely retrained. The apparatus and staff of civil servants are not strong enough to meet the requirements of the job.
Table 3.25: Evaluation of state management officials on tourism in Bo Keo province based on some criteria
Content
Hit | Percentage | |
1. Frequency of going to the base to grasp the situation and check implementation documents in tourism business activities | ||
Quarterly | 4 | 8.5 |
Monthly | 8 | 17.0 |
Weekly | 7 | 14.9 |
Never | 28 | 59.6 |
2. Level of regular coordination with relevant levels and sectors to tourism activities in solving work | ||
Quarterly | 5 | 10.6 |
Monthly | 20 | 42.6 |
Weekly | 8 | 17.0 |
Never | 14 | 29.8 |
3. Challenges and difficulties in performing work, thereby minimizing the causes that negatively affect work quality. job? | ||
No specific program or plan | 15 | 31.9 |
Not enough time to research the problem | 3 | 6.4 |
Work on urgent requests from leaders | 25 | 53.2 |
No cooperation from colleagues | 4 | 8.5 |
4. Fostering knowledge and practical experience through How to learn from other localities? | ||
Annual | 17 | 36.2 |
Quarterly | 5 | 10.6 |
Weekly | 6 | 12.8 |
Never | 19 | 40.4 |
Maybe you are interested!
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Source: Results of research by the author.
Looking at table 3.25, it shows the difficulties of the state management staff on tourism in terms of knowledge level, coordination in implementation and level of grasping the reality and checking tourism business activities in Bo Keo province.
The lack of investment capital has made many approved tourism projects impossible to implement. In particular, the implementation of key programs and key tourism projects in Bo Keo is still slower than required. The renovation and construction of tourism service infrastructure is a bottleneck in tourism development.
Although this issue has changed, compared to the actual requirements of tourism development, there are still many problems that need to be solved, especially the construction of roads between the province and districts, roads to tourist destinations, and roads connecting Bo Keo province with neighboring countries.
Investment in promotional activities and investment promotion has encountered many difficulties due to lack of funds and human resources, some projects in the tourism development program have been slow to be implemented. The quality of printing tourism promotion information pages of the province is not high and does not target the target market.
The excessive destruction of forest resources before 2014 also affected the environment of nature tourism and forest tourism (the province is piloting the construction of tree-top resorts).
Many organizations and individuals doing tourism business have not strictly complied with the regulations of the law on tourism business, unfair competition, etc. Besides, tourism companies in the province are still young, have little experience in tourism activities; scale and investment capital are low; staff are weak in foreign languages and limited in the scope of operations, the connection between companies inside and outside the province is also very weak and has not exploited the advantage of Bo Keo province being located in the Golden Triangle area.
The role of the Tourism Association has not been promoted. Based on the management and operation regulations of the Bo Keo Provincial Tourism Association No. 001/DL dated February 12, 2008 and Decision No. 191/DL BK dated April 30, 2008, the Association has not operated effectively and has not acted as an intermediary (bridge) for tourism companies, hotels, and restaurants. The level of participation of these entities in the Association is too low. The Bo Keo Tourism Association itself is not strong enough to proactively expand cooperation with foreign tourism associations and tourism associations of domestic provinces.
Chapter 4
DIRECTIONS AND SOLUTIONS TO IMPROVE STATE MANAGEMENT OF TOURISM IN BO KE PROVINCE,
Lao People's Democratic Republic
4.1. CURRENT CONTEXT AND DIRECTIONS FOR IMPROVING STATE MANAGEMENT OF TOURISM IN BO KE PROVINCE
4.1.1. Forecast of world tourism development to 2030
According to the general assessment of the World Tourism Organization (UNWTO), in the coming time, tourism will continue to grow globally. The number of international tourists is forecast to reach about 1.8 billion by 2030. Southeast Asia is expected to become the 4th largest international tourist attraction region in the world with 187 million arrivals [92].
It is forecasted that by 2030, tourists traveling for the purposes of visiting, health and religion will account for 31% of total international tourists; for the purposes of sightseeing, relaxation, entertainment and recreation will account for 54%; and for the purposes of work and career will account for 15%. Notably, tourists' experiential needs are oriented towards new values established on the basis of traditional cultural values (uniqueness, originality), natural values (primitiveness, wildness), creative values and high technology (modernity, convenience) [92].
Entering the 4th industrial revolution, according to the forecast of the World Tourism Organization, exploring indigenous culture will still be a bright spot in the world tourism trend to serve the needs of learning and exploring of people, but at the same time it also requires smarter ways of doing tourism and managing tourism. On the other hand, the development of information technology is assessed to have changed the way tourists access and share information, especially the influence of social networks and applications on the internet, mobile phones are increasingly popular, requiring destination management agencies to change their promotion methods and market orientation.
International openness and simplified entry procedures have been a common trend in the world in recent years. According to the Visa-Related Openness Report, the proportion of international tourists requiring visas to enter destinations worldwide has decreased from 77% in 2008 to 61% in 2015 and to 50% in 2017 [92].
At the 54th session of the Commission for Social Development, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon declared 2017 as the "Year of Sustainable Tourism" (within the framework of the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development). This shows the importance of tourism to the world economy.
At the regional level, the Pacific Asia Travel Association (PATA) and the World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) believe that the high growth of Asia-Pacific tourism in recent years means that regional tourism needs to take greater responsibility for this global development goal.
Intra-Asia-Pacific tourism was expected to be a key driver of the global economic recovery. But in recent years, the region’s economic growth has slowed, with the United Nations concerned that this could undermine the global sustainable development agenda.
One of the main solutions proposed by the United Nations is to prioritize medium-term plans and encourage domestic consumption. Regarding tourism, in the context of economic downturn, people show signs of reducing their demand for traveling abroad or to places with long distances, PATA and UNWTO recommend that countries pay more attention to domestic tourism to maintain and contribute to economic and social recovery.
UNWTO Secretary-General Taleb Rifai emphasized: "To reach the figure of 1.8 billion international tourists by 2030, tourism and aviation must always go hand in hand" [92]. In addition, the United Nations Civil Aviation Committee called for simplifying flight procedures, ensuring flight safety and facilitating global travel.
The strongest recent cooperation action between tourism and aviation was the "Medellin Joint Declaration" on cooperation in the development of Air Transport and Tourism, between UNWTO and the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) on the sidelines of the 21st Session of the World Tourism Organization General Assembly in Colombia.
Thus, it can be seen that cultural experience tourism, community tourism and eco-tourism are the advantages of developing countries like Lao PDR in the 4.0 era, because of high competitiveness due to following trends and low costs to build this type of tourism.
In addition, the development of digital technology will create a leap forward for the service industry in general and the tourism industry in particular. However, for the tourism industry to go further, it requires Lao PDR, Bo Keo province, a country and locality with great tourism potential but not yet really developed science and technology at a high level, to know how to calculate and choose wisely. If an important feature of the 4.0 revolution is "smart", then this era can only be successfully controlled by "smart" management. On the local side, according to recommendations, those directly involved in tourism must also try to preserve the pristine features, core and original values of the community to move towards responsible tourism development, while promoting the preservation of culture, customs and festivals of their locality.
On the other hand, the Industrial Revolution 4.0 based on digitalization and connectivity is a world trend. Therefore, the development of information technology is considered to have changed the way tourists access and share information, especially the influence of social networks and applications on the internet, mobile phones are increasingly popular, requiring the State management agency of tourism to change its methods. Thanks to the application of scientific - technical and technological achievements, tourism has been regionalized and internationalized globally. Tours between countries are linked together to meet the needs of tourists traveling to many countries in one trip, and tourism products are internationalized.
In the age of technology development, information is always accessed quickly and for free. Therefore, many tourists have planned their own trips.