Travellers in Vietnam have to… go to bed early
Why do travellers have to go to bed early? Because they have nowhere to go in the evening.
Why go to bed early ?
Putting the bottle of beer on the table at a restaurant on Pham Ngu Lao street in district 1, HCM City, the Canadian traveller, Steve, said: “Your country is really very nice, but I have nowhere to go in the evening in big cities. In Vietnam, I go to bed earlier than in other countries.”
I tried to show Steve several addresses of bars and shopping centres in HCM City, but Steve shook his head, saying: “I do not come to Vietnam to go to bars,” then adding that he wanted something specific for Vietnam.
“I know that Vietnam has water puppets. Where can I go see water puppet performances in HCM City?” he questioned.
One time, I followed a city tour in HCM City, and the destinations were the Museum of War Evidence and Thong Nhat Meeting Hall. A guide said to me: “Not every traveller wants to visit the Museum of War Evidence, but where do we take them if not the museum?”
Especially, travellers have nowhere to go in the evening, except walking in the central areas, or going to restaurants, and then… returning to hotels to go to bed. The night markets and shopping centres in HCM City have become old, thus not attracting visitors any more.
“In our tours, HCM City is just a place where travellers stay before going to the east or west,” said Managing Director of Global Holidays Nguyen Duc Hy.
Mr Hy said that HCM City was seriously lacking entertainment services for travellers. Travel firms cannot find any attractive show or entertainment places to lead travellers to in the evening.
Nguyen Van My, Director of Lua Viet Travel, complained about the monotony of entertainment points in HCM City. “Travellers do not like karaoke bars, they like dancing, while the city has many karaoke bars, markets and small restaurants,” he said.
Mr Hy said that splendid shows organised every night were what the city lacked to attract clients. Travellers not only need to eat Vietnamese cuisine, they also need dancing or trying their fortune at casinos or lucky draws.
How to keep travellers up ?
A representative of Ben Thanh Tourist said that no travel firm in the city developed night tours though the demand was very high. It is because of the lack of services.
In fact, the city Tourism Department once planned to cooperate with the Culture and Information Department to organise cai luong (a kind of traditional opera) and water puppet shows to serve travellers. However, the plan remains just on paper.
Minister of Culture, Sports and Tourism Hoang Tuan Anh said on September 12 that he would propose that the government allow entertainment points in HCM City to open after 0 am to provide more services to travellers.
The regulations on banning entertainment services after 0am do not help stop social evils, while hinder the development of the tourism industry.
According to the Vietnam National Administration of Tourism VNAT, 2.8mil foreigners came to Vietnam in the first 8 months of the year, an increase of 104% over the same period last year, including 1.7mil tourists. Statistics show that 70% of tourists do not come back to Vietnam. Many reasons have been cited to explain this, including the lack of entertainment services.
Saigontourist’s recent survey shows that an American tourist spends $2,916 on a trip to Vietnam, including $1,405 on airfare, which means little spending on services while staying in Vietnam.
Other travel firms also say that in HCM City, the biggest commercial hub, foreign travellers spend $100 per day, a very low figure, because they do not have opportunities to spend money.
Beautiful landscapes are really the things that attract foreigners to Vietnam, but attractive services will make them come back.
Thanh Niên - October 2, 2007.
|