I.

INTRODUCTION:

Hue is a city in Thua Thien Hue province, Vietnam. Hue used to be the ancient capital of Vietnam
under the Tay Son Dynasty (1788–1801) and the Nguyen Dynasty (1802–1945). Currently, Hue is
considered one of the centers of culture - tourism, specialized health care, education and
training, science and technology of the Central of Vietnam – Tay Nguyen and the whole country.
Prominent landmarks are the Huong River and the legacy of the feudal dynasties, the city has five
UNESCO titles in Vietnam: Complex of Hue Monuments (1993), Hue Royal Music (2003) ,
Woodblocks of Nguyen Dynasty (2009), Chau Ban of Nguyen Dynasty (2014) and Poetry system
on Hue royal architecture (2016)(1). However, according to the article “Developing the potential
of Hue ancient capital” written by a journalist called Nguyen Dac Thanh in 2021, although Hue is
a destination that holds a lot of advantages including cultural heritage, scenic spots, mountains,
rivers, seas, lagoons... But tourism seems to slowly grow(2). In order to promote the city’s tourism
reputation, effective marketing strategy plays an important role. This paper will analyze and
respond to questions related to challenges as well as the most common issues of destination
marketing. Besides, there will be the evaluation of technological developments and destination
marketing, then the importance of tourist’s role in destination marketing will be assessed and
emphasized.

II. HUẾ - DESTINATION MARKETING EVALUATION:

1. Overview of tourism development in Hue:

Tourism is identified as the spearhead economy of Thua Thien - Hue province as well as Hue city.
In addition to the historical - cultural relics, famous landscapes, Hue cuisine is also considered to
be extremely rich and diverse, becoming a strength of this destination. The World Tourism
Organization once had an interesting statistic that, on average, a tourist spends about one-third
of his or her money on food.

From December 2021, Thua Thien - Hue welcomes and serves guests from safe epidemic areas,
continues to stimulate tourism in the province as an experiment to gradually "open up" in
accordance with the current situation. As the country entered the new normal, the travel
demand of Vietnamese tourists increased significantly, especially, not to mention that the trend
of long-term domestic travel also increased. Besides, local authorities also cooperate with
businesses to create events to promote tourism demand and also an effective marketing method
for Hue’s tourism. There needs to be a confirmation that Hue’s authorities, locals and tourism
enterprises did work well on this task.

One of the most outstanding evidences is that in early April, 2022, Hue successfully organized a
sports competition under the brand name "Marathon VnExpress Hue 2022", attracting 5,000
people across the country to participate. The Union of travel agencies in Hue has just launched a
service to enjoy the Huong River on a yacht called "Trà chiều trên sông Hương" giving visitors a
new unique Hue experience of relaxing, enjoy Hue-style tea and cakes, and contemplate beautiful
riverbank.

Especially, after two years of postponement due to the pandemic, the return of Hue Festival 2022
was the efforts of the authorities and people of Thua Thien Hue province to bring life back to
normal; at the same time, contributing to stimulating demand with the goal of "Active -
Sustainable - Safe" tourism development. With a variety of art programs and new organizing
methods, Hue Festival 2022 aims to develop as a four-season festival. The goal is to increase the
ability to attract tourists, develop the economy, and reduce the pressure on the local budget.

In fact, according to the article “Thua Thien – Hue tourism revives strongly” published by Ministry
of Natural Resources and Environment of Vietnam, the total number of visitors to the province
was estimated at 55,000 (in addition, the relic sites in the Hue heritage area welcome 39,089
visitors); revenue from tourism services was estimated at approximately 90 billion dong. The
number of guest stay was estimated at 32,000 (including nearly 800 international guests), the
capacity of hotel rooms from 3-5 stars was approximately 60% (only in 2 days April 30 and 1/5
the capacity is over 90%)(3). The above figures showed a positive and stable recovery signal of
tourism in Hue.

2. Destination Marketing Analysis – limitations and challenges:

Despite showing the growth in the number of visitors, and the extremely rich tourism potential,
Hue is still said that the way of doing, the way of promotion is still not impressive enough to bring
tourism to new heights. There are several challenges that were already analyzed and confirmed
by experts as well as authorities. Nguyen Dac Thanh (2021) claims that Hue Festival has been
quite famous not only nationally but internationally. However, after 10 periods of organization,
when the festival ends, the locals and tourists no longer see legacy of this event. "What legacy
did the festival leave after the closing?" is a question that many people have asked, but the
authorities have not yet responded. Director of the Department of Tourism of Thua Thien Hue
province, Mr. Tran Huu Thuy Giang also admitted that Hue Festival has not really become a true
tourism product in the way of operation, exploitation and close connection with business
enterprises and travel services. He further affirmed that Hue does not have typical and branded
products such as big programs associated with its unique heritage and culture. Community
tourism products, lagoon tours, resort tours - health care are still small, services are not
synchronized...(4). Therefore, it can be claimed that the most common problems in destination
marketing of Hue are the lack of synchronization and an unique branding in the marketing of
each tourism product.

According to the personal observation, following social networking sites as well as learning from
many official electronic news sources, I consider that Hue tourism up to the present time has
been promoted by posting information on websites of travel companies such as Huetourist, Hue
City,... On social networking platforms such as facebook, instagram, youtube, information about
Hue tourism is spread by short articles and vlogs by individual tourists or famous youtubers and
KOLs such as Ninh Tito, Sunhyun,...; Marketing products invested and developed by the local
government, using modern media are quite few, most of which only exist in the form of electronic
articles or a travel-review posts on websites, facebook page like Check-in Vietnam or Vietnam
tourism. In short, the technology advancements in terms of tourism marketing in Hue is not
strong enough to attract big number of tourists.

Back to the story of marketing products for tourism in Hue created by tourists, KOLs,
influencers..., we can see that the role of tourists in promoting tourism Tourism development in
Hue or any other destination is extremely important. An interesting fact has been recognized that
tourists often do not put too much faith in advertising information or marketing products, they
believe and are attracted by the sharing of people who have traveled in that destination before.
Beautiful photos in the imperial city of Hue or colorful images of Thuy Xuan incense village
spreaded on social media platforms, attracting thousands of interactions and sharing is the
clearest evidence of the important role of tourists in destination marketing. Thanks to the
pictures, review posts, vlogs that tourists make about Hue, the number of people interested in
this destination has also increased significantly. Besides, they can be informed knowledge about
culture, history, cuisine, people in Hue more easily and quickly. Moreover, when a video or a post
with eye-catching images is viral, this can immediately create a trend. For example, in the
previous years, taking the train from Hue to Da Nang was not famous and rarely mentioned,
however, after only a short video on Tiktok with content on how to travel from Da Nang to Hue
and the check-in corner at the train lobby has become hot, bringing about thousands of visitors
- especially young tourists aged 20 and older who have chosen to travel by train from Da Nang to
Hue to experience this trend.

III. CONCLUSION

Overall, athough Hue owns a lot of tourism potentials including historical – cultural resources,
natural resources, diverse cuisine, etc, it does contains a lot of limitations and challenges in the
destination marketing leading to the low development speed of Hue. In order to achieve the aim
of turning tourism into a vital spearhead economic sector, Thua Thien Hue shoud be emphasized
to focus on market segmenting, investing in building infrastructure and facilities for tourism
development, prioritizing infrastructure for targeting the right group of customert, smart and
sustainable tourism development. Besides, I personally recommend that the government should
cooperate with tourism agency to improve the quality of key tourism products, with
characteristics bearing Hue's identity; promote professional, effective and practical tourism
promotion... Furthermore, along with the development of high-quality tourism products,
technological advancements should be promoted. Specifically, Hue’s tourismproducts, services
and cuisines need to be strongly popularized on social media such as Facebook, Instagram, Tiktok
or Youtube in form of peer-review posts, short vlogs or trending challenges, etc.
 IV. REFLECTION ON THE COURSE – HOSPITALITY AND TOURISM MARKETING

Hospitality and Tourism Marketing course is the first course in the Hospitality, Sports and Tourism
Management program that gives me a clearer view of what is tourism marketing, how marketing
in tourism is different from normal product marketing . The concepts and examples of tourism
marketing, service versus goods give me a clearer picture of the difference between tourism
products and regular products - tourism products are intangible, cannot be touched, cannot be
felt until the customer uses the product. Therefore, marketing in tourism is also completely
different, it focuses more on customer experience, mental comfort and satisfaction, and at the
same time building good relationships with customers. Besides, other concepts including market
segmentation, positioning and branding give me chances to research and analyze cases of famous
brands in service industry like Highlands, The coffee house, JW Marriot in order to make
comparison and explore the way those brands retain their customers and get profits. Moreover,
the chapters of promotion, pricing, distribution revealed that making market segmentation
clearly is important, because only the correct segmentation of customer can be suitable and
attracted by strategies that company created based on their product values.

This course not only gave me knowledge about marketing in tourism, but also gave me access to
real cases of marketing strategies of big brands, helping me to have a more realistic view of this
industry. Highly qualified and experienced instructors – Ms. Pham Huong Trang gave me many
examples of real cases which supported me to understanding, explaining abstract and concepts.
Besides, the course made me discover many aspects and abilities of myself. I have a little
experience and ability to work well in the field of communication and media, through this course
I understand more that communication and marketing are inseparable, so I have a plan to learn
more about tourism marketing in order to give my career an edge to develop in the future.
 V. REFERENCES

1. Huế - Wikipedia: https://vi.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hu%E1%BA%BF

2. Khai thác tiềm năng cố đô Huế, Nguyen Dac Thanh (2021): https://nhandan.vn/khai-thac-tiem-
nang-co-do-hue-post669096.html

3. Du lịch Thừa Thiên – Huế “hồi sinh” mạnh mẽ, Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment
of Vietnam (2022): https://baotainguyenmoitruong.vn/du-lich-thua-thien-hue-hoi-sinh-manh-
me-339591.html

4. Khai thác tiềm năng cố đô Huế, Nguyen Dac Thanh (2021): https://nhandan.vn/khai-thac-tiem-
nang-co-do-hue-post669096.html