Google launched on December 9 Travel Insights, a website to provide global data and insights into Vietnam’s tourism and travel industry with the aim to help better understand pent-up travel demand and leverage insights from these tools to plan for the road ahead. 

Destination Insights with Google. Screenshot: NM

Ms. Tram Nguyen, Country Manager of Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia at Google Asia Pacific, said: “We’ve heard from our partners, such as the Vietnam National Administration of Tourism, that data and insights are critical to helping them plan ahead, and we’ve created three new tools to help meet that need.” 

The website will provide three data and insights tools. Destination Insights - this tool will give a clear picture of the top sources of demand for a destination, and the destinations within countries that travelers are most interested in visiting - helping the industry map out a possible resumption of travel on specific routes and make choices about where to communicate with potential future travelers. 

Hotel Insights is designed to help hotels of all sizes, especially small and independent hotels, understand where demand for their property may be coming from and how to target their marketing as they plan their recovery. The Travel Analytics Center - available to Google’s commercial partners in the travel sector - will enable organizations to combine their own Google account data with broader Google demand data and insights to give a clearer picture of how to manage their operations and find opportunities to reach potential visitors.  

Over the last few weeks, several global tourism and travel organizations such as the UNWTO, ASEAN Secretariat, the Ministry of Tourism and Creative economy of Indonesia, Vietnam National  Administration of Tourism, Singapore Tourism Board, Taiwan Tourism Bureau, and others - have had early access to the Destination Insights tool. Many of these partners have already been using the tool to get insights into both inbound and outbound demand from their countries. 

The launch of Destination Insights is at perfect timing for Vietnam as Ho Chi Minh City is working on recovering measures for the tourism industry and restructuring destinations for the post-Covid-19 period, Mrs. Vo Thi Ngoc Thuy, Deputy Director for the Department of Tourism of Ho Chi Minh City said. “This tool is very useful as we can monitor domestic and international travel demand with real-time data. We wish to access these data as soon as possible and hope that this tool will be improved as time goes on so that we can make statistical comparisons between countries,” she added.

Top growth by destination city on Google's website. Screenshot: NM

As part of the effort to support Vietnam’s tourism industry, Hue is a city that Google directs their attention towards with activities like generating a 3D model for the Mausoleum of Emperor Tu Duc on Google Art & Cultures and upload the model on Search. 

Mr. Nguyen Van Phuc, Deputy Director for Hue city’s Tourism Department, said that with the ability to provide data and insights on the tourism industry, the website will be a good support for destinations, businesses, and the authority to manage tourism at the current moment in which the city needs to be cautious to prevent Covid-19 while finding solutions to slowly recover the tourism industry, reconfiguring new travel products and services to meet the current demand from travelers. Hue and other provinces in Vietnam can push for a revival in local tourism.

The website will be a helpful and reliable resource to support managers and businesses in the tourism industry in creating business strategies to grow a sustainable travel industry, Mr. Ho An Phong, Vice Chairman of the Quang Binh People's Committee, said.

The Destination Insights Tool indicates that domestic demand in Vietnam is on a steady path to recovery back to 100% of 2019 levels, especially in the past two weeks. Coastal and nature areas are growing in popularity and Ha Giang has become the fastest growing destination growing at over 75% over the last two months - pointing towards more Vietnamese travelers looking to travel in places which are off the beaten track.