Tourism market segmentation: A best way to lure all types of tourists

Advantages

With a population of 1.2 million and nearly 6 million visitors per year, the local tourism sector has obliviously played an important role in the economic development of the province. Be adjacent to Ho Chi Minh City, many domestic visitors arrive in Binh Thuan on weekends to enjoy seafood, relax at accommodation with reasonable prices and enjoy beautiful beaches. Therefore, if focusing on well-developed investment, tourism can be expanded to naturally reflect the province's daily life identities and become more popular and attractive destination. Thereby, it creates a beautiful environment in conformity with locals as well as domestic and foreign visitors.

Binh Thuan tourism has welcomed a great number of tourists

According to plan of tourist segmentation, Binh Thuan has welcomed about 90% of visitors from southern provinces. Among them, many visitors from Ho Chi Minh City want to have a weekend holiday at reasonable prices to escape from the city’s heat. Such groups continue to enlarge strongly. They belong to many different groups, including young travelers traveling with friends and elderly tourists who traveling with their family on weekends from HCM city.

Their incomes vary from moderate to higher levels. However, only a small number of tourists regularly choose Binh Thuan for their 2-night vacation. Many of them regard Binh Thuan as a better choice among others for their weekend destinations. They have rated Binh Thuan's beaches as the most beautiful ones to the extent of near distance. Many tourists are attracted by the low and mid-grade systems of hotels and resorts in the affordable food.

A few tourists belonging to this segment take part in windsurfing or other sports. In addition, another group of tourists from the Northern and Central provinces coming to the Southern provinces can visit Phan Thiet as a part of their exploration journey.

Their tastes are widely varied. For example, some people prefer to stay in affordable guest accommodation, while others prefer to stay at more upscale resorts or enjoy local cuisine. Many tourists are fascinated by historical and natural landmarks but do not participate in sea sports, and others have the opposite demands for entertainment.

Tourism market segmentation to attract visitors

In recent years, the province's tourism revenue is estimated at about VND 8.5 trillion per year, accounted for more than 2% of the whole country’s tourism revenues, according to the Vietnam’s general statistics.

The target for revenue of Binh Thuan tourism industry to 2025, vision to 2030 will be more double or higher than the current one. To achieve the above target, Binh Thuan has to evaluate and segment to attract tourists, pay attention to maximizing the province's inherent resources, and develop strategies for developing tourism, entertainment and water sports in order to attract the most potential tourists.

Moreover, the province regularly capture and update its understandings of tourists’ needs and desires to determine which products and services should be provided to each type of tourists. At the same time, it needs to review, evaluated and reorganize destinations that tourists are not satisfied with. It’s better to impress visitors with beautiful memories and interesting stories to share with their family and friends about Binh Thuan after returning home.

It is expected that the number of tourist arrivals to Binh Thuan will increase more and more, mostly international tourists with higher spending than current visitors. If they are provided with appropriate experiences, both domestic and foreign tourists will find their ways to Binh Thuan. However, to make tourists spend much more, there is a need to offer more choices of activities and attractions to lure tourists; the province should create a truly unique tourism ecosystem with higher competitiveness than other destinations in the area.

Along with that, the transportation systems are needed to improve to serve for visitors from neighboring provinces and cities, as well as to shorten travel time for tourists from further provinces and cities. Functional agencies also need to focus on environmental protection, especially on waste management to urgently minimize pollution at beaches and tourist destinations in the province.

On the other hand, natural disasters, climate changes as well as erosion are taken into careful consideration with better measures to ensure safety for tourists.  In the meantime, the local authorities need to unveil mechanism for researching, selecting, training and fostering high-quality human resources in line with services development. Hence, those can provide skilled human resources for the tourism industry to promote the image of Binh Thuan’s land and people. With the help of high-qualified staffs, tourists are able to improve their understanding of Binh Thuan in general and Binh Thuan tourism in particular, contributing to showing off the province's identity, and creating beautiful environment and attractive destinations in agreement with both locals as well as tourists.

Translated by Ul (Source: Binh Thuan Newspaper)