Australian-invested Cowan Design Company, which has won a contest to design a logo and slogan for Vietnam’s tourism, will likely be chosen to map out a strategy to build the tourism brand name and promote the country’s tourism image, a tourism official said.
Nguyen Van Tuan, Director General of the Vietnam National Administration of Tourism (VNAT), said that “the first-prize winner of the contest to select the tourism sector’s logo and slogan in 2011 – 2015 period will be chosen to map out the marketing strategy for the country’s tourism in the period.”
On January 26, Cowan Design Company, whose entry in the contest being a star-shaped logo and the slogan ‘Vietnam-A Different Orient, ’ was announced by VNAT as first prize winner of the contest.
“We are collecting ideas from relevant departments, media, and experts for improving the slogan. We will hire the company upon the Government’s approval to select this slogan for the country’s tourism, ” he said, adding the process would be completed later this month.
Tuan said that it would be the first time VNAT hires an outside company to map out the marketing strategy for tourism development.
“We’ve been doing marketing activities by ourselves. Now, we want to go professional with the new move, ” he said.
The marketing strategy is expected to underpin the country’s tourism industry in its target to obtain VND110 trillion in revenue this year compared with VND96 trillion (US$5 billion) in 2010.
Along with the new change in marketing activities, the leader said that VNAT would maintain its regular activities such as joining travel fairs, organizing familiarization trips, road shows and tourism festivals to promote tourism’s image at home and abroad.
VNAT has plans to join many international travel exhibitions abroad this year such as TRAVEX 2011 in Cambodia, FITUR in Portugal, MITT in Russia, ITB Berlin in Germany, JATA Travel fair in Japan, ITB Asia in Singapore, and World Travel Market in England.
The agency will focus more on activities to promote the National Tourism Year that will take place in seven central coastal provinces this year. VNAT expects the tourism year to help woo more tourists to the central region and to promote island and beach tourism designated as the main products of the country’s tourism in the coming times.
Tuan said VNAT is also working on a plan to open representative offices in foreign countries. “We want to open offices in key markets like China, Northeast Asia and Western Europe, ” he said.
VNAT expects to welcome 5.3 to 5.5 million foreign visitors this year compared to 5.05 million last year, and around 30 million local travelers, up from 28 million in 2010.
