Hanoi is set to intensify tourism promotion on internet, foreign television channels, mobile apps and social networks in an effort to boost economic growth.

Hanoi to intensify tourism promotion on internet, foreign TV channels.

The move is part of a series of measures set up in the investment – trade – tourism promotion program for 2020, which was recently approved by the municipal People’s Committee.

Additionally, Hanoi plans to gradually adopt IT application in tourism management and implement smart tourism.

The city expects to promote the Hanoi brand as an attractive tourism destination the region and the world, at the same time advertising the city  in major markets through domestic and international tourism fairs, including those in Southeast Asia, Japan, Europe and North America, among others.

Under the plan, Hanoi also looks to develop MICE (meeting, incentive, convention and exhibition) tourism for business travelers.

On December 22, 2016, Hanoi inked a US$1 million deal with CNN for broadcasting the city’s stories and luring more tourists to Hanoi as well as Vietnam. The program was later extended for the 2019 – 2024 period.

Accordingly, CNN would extend the publicity campaign on Hanoi with 30 or 60 second promo clips, and 30-minute programs covering various aspects of the city from history, lifestyle, and people to architecture and technological development of the millennial city.

This campaign proved effective as it helped increase CNN viewers’ awareness of Hanoi by 86% in 2017, and 91% in 2018, according to BDRC Continental, one of the UK’s largest independent research consulting firms.

In 2019, Hanoi welcomed nearly 29 million tourists, up 10.1% year-on-year, including 7.02 million foreign tourists, up 17%.

As tourism is one of the groups hardest hit by the pandemic, the number of tourists to Hanoi plunged 65.4% year-on-year to 4.93 million in the January – June period this year, including a decline of 68.8% in foreign tourists and a contraction of 61.5% in revenue from tourism activities.

Stay active in FDI attraction

In addition to tourism, Hanoi looks to attract investment capital in sectors such as real estate, commercial infrastructure, with a focus on high-technologies, environmentally friendly and efficient-energy saving ones.

Hanoi would stay active in promoting investments, particularly FDI, in high added-value sectors, such as manufacturing and processing, logistics, agriculture, tourism, education, healthcare, supporting industries, hi-tech farming, among others.

These promotional activities are expected to concentrate on major markets, such as Japan, South Korea, Taiwan (China), Chile, the US and EU, those who are members of free trade agreements that Vietnam is a part of, including the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans – Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), EU – Vietnam Free Trade Agreement (EVFTA), or upcoming Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP).

For trade and commercial fields, Hanoi would continue to promote the campaign “Vietnamese buying Vietnamese goods” to help boost domestic production and consumption, which could be done via greater provincial linkage in supply and demand; boost production chains for agro-forestry-fishery products and encourage new hi-tech farming models.

As the city continues to pursue the dual target of both containing the pandemic and boosting economic growth, Hanoi’s gross regional domestic product (GRDP) is estimated to have expanded 3.39% in the first half of 2020, significantly higher than Vietnam's rate at 1.8%.

This year, Hanoi targets an economic growth rate 1.3 times higher than the national average.