Exporting tourism services in Vietnam: Current situation and solutions

SUMMARY OF RESEARCH RESULTS

The Party and State have issued Resolution No. 08-NQ/TW, dated January 16, 2017 of the Politburo on developing the tourism industry into a spearhead, in which the document stated that "The development of the tourism industry has been contributing to promoting economic restructuring and on-the-spot exports; preserving and promoting the value of cultural heritage and natural resources; creating many jobs, improving people's lives; accelerating the process of international integration, promoting the image of the country and people of Vietnam" and the Vietnam Tourism Development Strategy to 2030 with the goal of "Vietnam becoming an attractive destination, striving to be among the top three countries in tourism development in Southeast Asia and the top 50 countries in the world in tourism competitiveness, in which all 14 tourism competitiveness criteria have increased, in line with the requirements of sustainable development". Vietnam tourism has many favorable conditions, is blessed by nature with many world-famous landscapes, but the tourism service export industry is still young and has many limitations that hinder the development of the industry. In order to fully exploit its strengths, Vietnam's tourism service industry needs to have an overall view, learn from developed countries to come up with appropriate development directions and make positive changes for sustainable development and become a key economic sector.

The thesis consists of 03 chapters that have deeply researched the basic issues related to tourism business export of some developed countries, with the following results:

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First, provide basic concepts of services, service exports and tourism service exports.

Second, outline the potential of Vietnam's tourism industry, the current status of Vietnam's tourism service export, and provide an overview of tourism service export activities in Vietnam.

Third, it sets out the goals and development orientations for Vietnam's tourism industry, from which the thesis proposes a group of development solutions for Vietnam's tourism export and business in the period 2020 - 2025.

With the research results and the synthesis of reference documents, hopefully the thesis will help readers have an overview and details of tourism service export in Vietnam in recent times.

1. Urgency of the topic

PREFACE

Up to now, Vietnam is a member of the WTO and has fulfilled its commitments to the world's largest trade organization, the Vietnamese economy has undergone many significant changes. Trade in services in general and tourism services in particular have proven to be potential economic activities, playing an important role, affecting all social activities, especially the economy. Exporting and trading has now become an important economic activity of many countries, contributing to economic growth, creating jobs for the majority of workers in these countries.

Nowadays, people's living standards are getting higher and higher, they not only have full material needs but also have spiritual needs such as entertainment and travel. Therefore, tourism is one of the promising industries. Currently, most countries in the world attach importance to tourism development. In Vietnam, tourism is considered an inevitable trend, a locomotive in the process of international economic integration and brings a significant source of income to the Vietnamese economy.

Vietnam's tourism industry was born later than other countries in the world, but its role is undeniable. Tourism is an "industry without chimneys", bringing large GDP income to the economy, solving jobs for tens of thousands of workers, contributing to spreading the image of Vietnam to the world. The Party and the State have identified developing the tourism industry as a spearhead. Research on tourism is urgent and provides an overview of the tourism industry in the current period. From there, Vietnam can achieve more achievements, promote inherent strengths and limit shortcomings, bring tourism development in the right direction with potential and integration.

Tourism services play an important role in the economy and tourism export is a new direction to help Vietnam improve and increase exports, enhance the country's competitiveness in the region and the world, and balance the trade balance. Therefore, as a student majoring in economics with the desire to contribute knowledge to the Vietnamese economy in general and the service industry in particular, the author has chosen the topic: "Export of tourism services in Vietnam: Current situation and solutions"

2. Research status of the topic

Exporting tourism services is a very popular socio-economic sector in the world and tends to develop rapidly. Vietnam is a developing country and has advantages in natural resources, history and culture. Therefore, reference documents and books have also mentioned this content.

- World tourism service market and Vietnam's service export activities - Do Lan Huong, 2014 gave an overview of Vietnam's service export market.

- Documents on services and service exports of WTO, UNDP and other organizations. These studies focus on presenting the role of service exports, including tourism service exports, to a country's economy, in order to serve the purpose of economic analysis and development.

In addition, there are a number of theses researching and analyzing the tourism industry from different aspects:

- The thesis "Export of tourism services of some countries in the world and lessons for Vietnam" by Hoang Thanh Hang (2018) gave an overview of tourism service exports of some prominent countries such as the US, Singapore and Thailand to draw lessons for Vietnam. The thesis objectively analyzed Vietnam tourism and focused on proposing solutions to expand and improve the effectiveness of Vietnam tourism activities.

- The thesis "Some solutions to attract international tourists to Vietnam" by Doan Ngoc Diep (2013) summarizes some basic theories on attracting international tourists from a national perspective, giving an overview of the tourism market in general and the characteristics of the Vietnamese market. From there, a plan and strategy to promote Vietnamese tourism to foreign tourists is proposed.

- The thesis "Improving the strategic planning for promoting destinations of Vietnam's tourism industry" by Nguyen Van Dang - University of Commerce (2007) systematizes a number of new theoretical issues on tourist destinations and tourist destination models. Analyze and survey the current status of strategic planning and evaluate strategic planning.

Strategy. Building a general model for planning a mixed tourism destination promotion strategy.

However, according to research, the author has not found any documents focusing on research and analysis of tourism service export activities in Vietnam in the period 2016-2020.

3. Research objectives

The research objective of this topic is to present the current situation in the tourism service industry in Vietnam, analyze and evaluate specifically the export of tourism services as well as the development of the industry through the stages. From there, the research provides specific conclusions and solutions to improve the export capacity of tourism services, increase the competitiveness of the tourism service industry, and ensure Vietnam's position in the international market.

4. Research object and scope

4.1 Research subjects:

- The research object of the topic is: Vietnam's tourism service export activities.

4.2 Scope of research:

- In terms of space: the thesis focuses on researching the current situation and evaluating tourism service export activities in Vietnam.

- In terms of time: the thesis studies the situation of tourism service export in Vietnam from 2016 to 2020 and proposes solutions for the service industry in the period 2020-2025.

- In terms of research content: the thesis studies tourism service export activities such as policies, circulars, resolutions, and the current situation of tourism service export in Vietnam.

5. Research methods

During the research process, the thesis uses the main research methods in economic research such as dialectical materialism and historical materialism, systematic method, analysis and synthesis method.

The specific methods are as follows: data collection, use of documents, secondary data, graphs, comparison, contrast, induction, statistics.

6. Conclusion of the topic

In addition to the introduction, conclusion, list of tables and figures, list of abbreviations, the thesis has 3 chapters:

Chapter 1: Theoretical basis of tourism service export activities. Chapter 2: Current status of tourism service export in Vietnam

Chapter 3: Solutions to promote tourism service export activities in Vietnam

7. Implementation plan

First of all, the author will collect data from qualitative studies and theories related to Vietnam's tourism service exports. In addition, with quantitative data, the author will collect data from data sources of international organizations such as WTO, UNDP as well as websites of the Vietnamese government such as the General Statistics Office, Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism.

Through comparison and cross-checking of synthesized data, combined with research theory, the author gives the most general overview of the current situation of tourism service export in Vietnam, and at the same time gives recommendations and solutions for tourism service export, vision 2020 - 2025.

CHAPTER 1: THEORETICAL BASIS OF TOURISM SERVICE EXPORT ACTIVITIES

1.1 General theoretical basis of services and tourism services

1.1.1 Service concept

Services are economic products including work in the form of physical labor, management, knowledge, organizational ability and professional skills to serve the production and business needs or consumption activities of individuals and organizations.

According to Philip Kotler: “A service is any activity or benefit that one entity can offer to another. The object of provision must be intangible and does not result in the ownership of anything. The production of a service may or may not be associated with a physical product.”

According to the 2013 Price Law on Services: Services are intangible goods, inseparable in the production and consumption processes, including types of services in the system of Vietnamese product industries according to the provisions of law.

According to the definition of the American Marketing Association (AMA), services are "intangible activities to satisfy the needs and desires of customers, in which services do not necessarily require the use of tangible products, but in all cases do not involve ownership of anything."

Thus, the above definitions all show the following characteristics of services:

- Services are intangible.

- Is an exchange activity between the provider and the recipient of a service and does not ultimately result in ownership of anything.

- Services do not necessarily require the use of tangible/physical products.

According to OECD (2000), the definition of services focuses more on the added value that services bring, accordingly, services are "a set of many economic activities not directly related to the production of goods, mining or agriculture. Services include providing people with added value through labor, advice, management skills, entertainment, training, intermediation ...." Thus, services are considered one of the three basic sectors of the national economy, besides agriculture (including

agriculture - forestry - fishery) and industry, and can create value for people in many different forms.

In today's market economy, service provision activities are very diverse and rich, which are activities that create products that do not exist in physical form, to satisfy human needs in production and life. These can be consumer services such as food and drink, household appliances, home repair or public services such as electricity, water supply and urban sanitation, or support services for production and business such as banking, transportation, insurance.

The nature of service is the process of operating activities and behaviors based on intangible factors to resolve relationships between businesses and customers. It takes place in a certain order including many stages, many different steps and each stage will sometimes have many additional services, additional services. Services are all associated with the goal of bringing some value to consumers, which are the utilities, values and added values that customers receive after using the service.

1.1.2 Characteristics of the service

Services have unique characteristics that distinguish them from tangible goods. These characteristics include:

- Intangibility

- Inseparability between service provision and consumption

- Inconsistent quality

- Non-preservable

- Non-convertible ownership

a) Intangibility

With tangible goods are identified by specific shapes and colors, services are completely opposite. It is intangible, making it impossible for customers' senses to perceive before buying the service. This is a big difficulty when selling a service compared to selling tangible goods because customers cannot feel the quality when buying, it is difficult to choose the service and service provider. Services are also more difficult to advertise when the provider has specific marketing strategies.

To help customers have enough information to support the purchasing decision process, businesses need to provide them with all the necessary information through many different means: directly through the sales team, customer care, through customer conferences, via toll-free phone calls, and indirectly through publications, advertisements, through company websites, on social networking platforms.

b) Inseparability between service provision and consumption

Goods are produced centrally in one place and then transported to where they are needed. When they leave the production line, they are complete. Therefore, manufacturers can achieve economies of scale through centralized, mass production and centralized quality control. Manufacturers can also produce when convenient, then store in warehouses and sell when there is demand. Therefore, they can easily balance supply and demand . But the process of providing and consuming services occurs simultaneously. Service providers and customers must interact to provide and consume services at locations and times that are convenient for both parties. For some services, customers must be present throughout the entire process of provision.

The inseparability between service provision and consumption affects customers: To experience and evaluate service quality, customers must go to the service location, experience the service themselves, and be influenced by the service provider and the service environment.

The inseparability between service provision and consumption affects service providers' difficulty in achieving economies of scale, difficulty in achieving a balance between service supply and demand, and the relationship between customers and service providers affects customers' perception of service quality.

The inseparability between service provision and consumption affects the marketing activities of enterprises. They need to use the dealer network to reach customers, use media and social networks. In addition, enterprises must develop policies for employees who regularly contact customers, policies for loyal customers to create close relationships with customers.

In some cases, where personal contact is not required, it is possible to separate supply and consumption. Customers can bring their phones, motorbikes, clothes, etc.

Exporting tourism services in Vietnam: Current situation and solutions - 2

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