PANO – A meeting in response to the 2015 World Tourism Day with the theme “One Billion Tourists, One Billion Opportunities” took place at the Ly Thai To Statue Square in Hanoi on September 26th, run by the Vietnam National Administration of Tourism (VNAT) and the European Union’s Environmentally and Socially Responsible Tourism Capacity Program (EU-ESRT).

World Tourism Day is annually commemorated 27 September 27th to foster awareness among the international community of the importance of tourism and its social, cultural, political and economic value.

Delegates and students in a joint photo during the meeting

VNAT Director General Nguyen Van Tuan held that World Tourism Day is an important international event for the tourism sector worldwide, including Vietnam. He held that the tourism sector is one of Vietnam’s key industries, contributing to creating jobs for locals and popularizing the country’s images to international friends.

For his part, Head of the EU Delegation to Vietnam Bruno Angelet emphasized the importance of the Vietnam-EU relations and applauded the remarkable development of the country’s tourism. Over the past 12 years, the EU has sponsored over EUR 20 million for the sector.

At the end of the ceremony, hundreds of students gathered rubbish around Hoan Kiem Lake and joined a march in electric cars to raise the public’s awareness of building the green tourism industry.

The number of foreign tourists to Vietnam increased from over 5 million in 2010 to approximately 8 million in 2014. During the period, the number of domestic holidaymakers also surged, from 28 million to 38 million.

Last year, tourism revenues accounted for 6 percent of Vietnam’s GDP. As many as 1.97 million Vietnamese people directly or indirectly work in the sector, making up 3.8 percent of the country’s total workforce.

Translated by Van Hieu