HÀ NỘI — Tour operator Vietravel was ranked first in the list of Việt Nam’s top 10 prestigious travel and tourism companies in 2018, announced by the Việt Nam Report Company.

Saigon Tourist came second, followed by Fiditour, Bến Thành Tourist and Hanoi Tourist.

The next five companies in the Top 10 prestigious travel and tourism companies in 2018 are new names including Exotissimo Travel Việt Nam; Vietnamtourism - Hanoi JSC; Company TST Tourist Service & Trading Corporation; Buffalo Tours Co., Ltd and Anex Viet Nam Travel And Trading Co., Ltd.

These companies are evaluated and ranked based on these main criteria: financial capacity shown in the most recent financial statements; prestige communication evaluated by Media Coding method; tourists and experts survey; and the enterprise survey conducted in December 2018 on the size of capital, market, labour, revenue growth rate, profit and operation plan in 2019.

In recent years, Việt Nam’s tourism industry has seen steady growth, with an average increase of over 15 per cent in both the number of domestic tourists and international visitors. The year 2018 continues to be evaluated as a successful year for the sector, with the country receiving about 15.6 million international visitors, serving over 80 million domestic tourists and total revenue from tourism reaching VNĐ620 trillion (US$26.5 billion).

With the strong development of the economy as well as rising incomes, Việt Nam’s tourism has good prospects of further development, towards the completion of the target by 2020 to attract 17-20 million international tourists, 82 million domestic tourists, contributing over 10 per cent of GDP, total revenue from tourists reaching $35 billion, export value through tourism reaching $20 billion and creating four million jobs.

However, to achieve that goal, Việt Nam’s tourism industry needs to overcome three major challenges, including exploiting tourism resources not commensurate with the available potential; lack of resources mobilised to support tourism development; and lack of infrastructure. — VNS