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| Vu Van Chuong, Vice Chairman of the Hue City Travel Association |
In an interview with Hue Ngay Nay Cuoi Tuan (Hue Today Weekend), Vu Van Chuong, Vice Chairman of the Hue City Travel Association, said that taking a frank look at bottlenecks is essential to formulating solutions. He emphasized that opening and sustaining international air routes to attract tourists is not the task of the authorities, the tourism sector, travel companies, or airlines alone, but a joint effort requiring all stakeholders to shoulder responsibility for a common goal.
From your perspective, what are the main bottlenecks that have prevented Hue from sustaining international air routes?
For years, the opening and long-term operation of international air routes have been a topic of study and discussion. This has prompted a recurring question: “If Phu Bai Airport in Hue is an international airport, why are international flights so rarely seen?”
In reality, local authorities and the tourism sector, working with relevant agencies and organizations, have once operated international routes to and from Phu Bai International Airport connecting destinations such as Thailand, South Korea, China, and Taiwan (China). Nevertheless, these flights were limited to charter services, introduced intermittently and unable to be maintained.
Numerous challenges exist in opening and maintaining international air routes. One prominent issue is the persistent shortage of passengers on outbound flights from Hue, despite strong demand on inbound services from abroad. Sustaining these routes requires meeting the criteria for two-way, balanced operations.
By comparison, neighboring Da Nang Airport has been highly successful in attracting tourists. With a large number of flights and favorable schedules, it has built a strong brand and become a habitual choice for travelers. Meanwhile, despite its focus on international air connectivity, Hue still faces several disadvantages.
In reality, launching an air route does not guarantee its sustainability. This issue calls for a long-term approach and genuine engagement from the authorities, the tourism industry, and the business community. Moreover, it is not simply an aviation issue—such as the availability of favorable slots or low ticket prices—but also concerns mechanisms for travel operators and the attractiveness of products and services at the destination.
Hue has concentrated resources on opening charter flights. Yet forming a market and shifting to scheduled commercial services requires stable operations over a period of two to three years. In other words, it is not a matter of doing it once, but of carefully allocating resources for the long run, with the aim of attracting sufficient passengers to operate the route weekly or at least once every two weeks. Regularly maintained flights are essential to establishing travel habits among tourists.
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| International tourists experience tourism and take check-in photos at the Hue Imperial Citadel |
In your view, to sustain international air routes, should Hue expand its passenger sources from neighboring provinces?
Demand for overseas travel among Hue residents does exist, but it requires further evaluation. To ensure a stable source of passengers, it may be necessary to attract tourists from other localities to Hue to take international flights.
Da Nang Airport provides an example, serving passengers not only from Da Nang but also from many surrounding localities. For Hue, neighboring provinces and cities offer potential markets for targeted attraction strategies. Travelers from Quang Tri may be a promising source, given the absence of an international airport there, despite ongoing demand for overseas travel related to tourism, work, study, and labor export.
Each locality has its own strategy, while travel companies remain limited in number and small in scale. In your view, how can Hue address this issue?
As mentioned earlier, this is a challenging task. However, such challenges require shoulder-to-shoulder efforts not only from local authorities and the tourism sector, but also from each individual business.
Hue continues to lack major tourism enterprises with the capacity to shoulder such responsibilities, as well as business linkages strong enough to undertake this work. Nevertheless, alongside state mechanisms and the efforts of each individual business, I believe Hue can achieve this.
According to current registration data, Hue has about 80 travel enterprises of different scales. Nevertheless, travel business activities are not bound by geographic boundaries, allowing Hue-based companies to draw tourists from Da Nang’s air routes, and vice versa.
Hypothetically, if businesses in Hue and Quang Tri were effectively connected to open and operate international air routes, Hue’s 80 enterprises and Quang Tri’s roughly 100 travel companies (including the former Quang Binh and Quang Tri provinces) could together make the effort entirely feasible. If each enterprise were dedicated enough to bring in just one passenger per flight, the plan would be viable. At the same time, as emphasized earlier, the State’s role is to provide mechanisms for a long-term pathway. This is an equation that can only be “solved” through the combined efforts of many stakeholders.
Another point to be made is that linking with neighboring localities represents a mutually beneficial approach. Hue can serve as a hub for attracting international tourists to and from Phu Bai International Airport, while working with Quang Tri Province to develop integrated tour routes that leverage the strengths and tourism resources of each locality.
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| Passengers from Shenzhen (China) arrive at Phu Bai International Airport |
Could you elaborate on how responsibilities should be shared to jointly shoulder this objective?
Opening and sustaining an international air route, amid Hue’s shortage of outbound passengers, requires a base of “anchor passengers” to enable regular operations—an approach viewed as a “seed” solution.
Individual enterprises may join forces, yet maintaining long-term viability clearly depends on sustainable solutions. Every year, government agencies, organizations, businesses and educational institutions generate a steady volume of travel demand for official duties, study and training, site visits, tourism, labor export and other purposes.
The State, particularly local authorities, should create enabling conditions or adopt incentive policies so that each stakeholder can share responsibility and contribute passenger volumes to flights departing from Hue. Responsibilities can be clearly defined through “targets” for each flight, specifying how many passengers local authorities can mobilize through flexible mechanisms and policies, and how many are to be secured by enterprises. This is not profit, but Hue’s overall development.
When collective resolve and joint efforts converge around a shared development objective, a ripple effect will follow. A higher frequency of flights will lead to the establishment of regular air routes; once in place, these routes can then be expanded to serve new international markets.
For international tourists to Hue, in your view, what fundamental solutions are needed to build a stable, long-term market?
It must be underscored that both inbound and outbound travel are equally important and require long-term strategic planning. Hue should proactively develop appealing tourism products tailored to specific markets, focus on enhancing the quality of tour routes and destinations, and introduce attractive incentive mechanisms for travel agencies, particularly through flexible pricing policies for heritage sites and tourist attractions.
One inherent weakness that Hue needs to examine is the lack of nighttime tourism products—an element that attracts tourists and helps “retain” them. These include services such as ao dai (Vietnam’s traditional long dress) shows and nighttime experiences at the imperial palace. In addition, there is a need for shopping centers and entertainment services that meet international standards, as well as distinctive local culinary spaces for tourists.
Local authorities and the tourism sector, via relevant agencies, should engage with competent authorities and international partners to secure favorable flight schedules and priority mechanisms, thereby facilitating Hue’s air links with international tourist markets.
Thank you for sharing.