Hard nuts to be cracked in digital transformation in tourism

The COVID-19 pandemic has posed big challenges for almost all industries and fields, with tourism among those suffering the heaviest. 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 Vietnam's tourism is said to have many barriers due to the uneven quality of workers, low management capacity, and limited digital technology.

In the coming time, 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. Le Thi Ai Nhan, 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 Vietnam is still quite inadequate in catching up with the trend of talent incubation and human resources development in digital tourism.

Most of restaurants, hotels, travel agents, travel shops, and tourist sites in the country have not been manned with those professionalised 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 having good conditions for digital transformation in the tourism industry are mostly in large cities and provinces.

Experts say that Vietnam can learn from international experience in building planning, synchronously 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, Vietnam 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./.

VNA