Challenges remain in tourism’s digital transformation

Tourists visit a Chăm tower, a historical relic in Quảng Nam Province. After the COVID-19 outbreak, digital transformation has become an indispensable requirement of the industry. – VNA/VnExpress News Photo

HÀ NỘI – The COVID-19 pandemic has posed big challenges for almost all industries and fields, with tourism suffering the most.

At the same time, due to the impact of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, with changes in consumer habits, especially after the COVID-19 outbreak, digital transformation has become an indispensable requirement of the industry.

The transformation of Việt Nam’s tourism sector is said to face many barriers due to the uneven quality of workers, low management capacity, and limited digital technology.

In the future, in order to remove those barriers, the industry must carry out effective solutions and overcome limitations in terms of finance, human resources, policies, information technology, organisation and management, and cooperation mechanisms.

According to Dr Lê Thị Ái Nhân, a social science expert, the top requirement of digital transformation and development of tourism is to have good human resources, as well as a large number of competent experts in information technology. However, the current training system in Việt Nam is still inadequate in catching up with the trend of talent incubation and human resources development in digital tourism.

Most restaurants, hotels, travel agents, travel shops, and tourist sites in the country have not been manned with those experienced in digital tourism to serve the requirements of digital transformation and the needs of tourists.

Another problem is differences in digital technology between regions across the country. The areas with good conditions for digital transformation in the tourism industry are mostly in large cities and provinces.

Experts say that Việt Nam can learn from international experience in planning and developing information infrastructure, the Internet of Things, and artificial intelligence in a professional and modern direction, associated with the tourism product value chain. In addition, Việt Nam should focus on developing smart cities along with tourism digital transformation infrastructure.

It is necessary to have more mechanisms and policies to encourage and promote the participation of stakeholders in the tourism digital transformation strategy, and expand international cooperation in this field. -VnExpress News