Finnish people have a positive general image of Vietnam although many of them have never travelled to Vietnam. The perceived image of Vietnam as a tourist destination in Finland was investigated in Ly Tran’s master thesis. Altogether 121 Finnish respondents shared their perspectives of Vietnam.
Most of the respondents had an overall stereotypical image of Vietnam
which can be summed up as follows: Vietnam is a beautiful Asian country
with friendly people, delicious food, interesting culture, beautiful
natural landscape, tropical weather, numerous nice beaches, unique world
heritages, war relics, old towns and affordable prices, moderate
infrastructure and services, and inconvenient transportation system.
Undoubtedly, ‘friendliness’ is the first and the most important
component of the overall image of Vietnam as a tourist destination in
Finnish people’s perception.
However, the awareness of Vietnam as a tourist destination image in
Finland is still very weak and vague. Most of the respondents said they
rarely see Vietnamese tourism advertisements in the Finnish media or
public areas. Thus, Vietnamese tourism authorities should strongly
promote and advertise the image of Vietnam as an authentic and exotic
Southeast Asian destination in Finland, providing information about the
country’s tourist attractions as well as economic, politic,
environmental and hygiene conditions. Nevertheless, marketing is not
enough: tourism industry in Vietnam is still rather young and it needs
to be developed in many ways to assure its competitiveness.
The supervisor of the thesis was professor Antti Haahti.
Master thesis of Tran Ha Mai Ly
“Measuring the perceived destination image of Vietnam in Finland” (Tourism Research/EMACIM Studies, University of Lapland) is available online at Doria:
http://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:ula-201312191400