“Golden tour”: Targeting solo travelers

Visitors to Vietnam Fine Arts Museum.

Connecting the destinations
Recently, Hanoi’s tourist industry has been asserting its role as one of the leading economies of the city’s overall development. The number of visitors to Hanoi increased by 23.5% for inbound visitors and by 7% for domestic at the beginning of September 2017, compare to the same peiod last year. The income from tourism is estimated to reach 52,954 billion VND. Taking advantage of the city’s densely concentrated historical venues as well as the rich legacy of culture, architecture, culinary and festival…, Hanoitourist Travel Company (Hanoitourist), Van Mieu-Quoc Tu Giam Scientific and Cultural activities Centre and Vietnam Museum of Fine art have worked together to create the product “Traditional passion for learning” in order to connect the 2 destinations Van Mieu – Quoc Tu Giam and Vietnam Museum of Fine art into the grand scheme of the “Golden tour” around Hanoi. The tour also brings together the accommodation providers, tourism destinations, restaurants, shopping locations, tour guide service and on-site guides.
As Mr. Phung Quang Thang – Director of Hanoitourist said, the consumer behavior of traveller has changed. The segment of solo travellers and group travellers has outgrown the tourist segment and currently accounts for 50% of the world travel market. Thus, aside from Van Mieu – Quoc Tu Giam and Vietnam Museum of Fine art, the “Golden Tour” is also meant to facilitate the traveller’s exploration of Hanoi, as it bring together the hotels: Thang Long Opera Hanoi, Sofitel Legend Metropole Hanoi, Hotel De L’opera, Hilton Opera Hanoi, Hoa Binh Hotel,…
Operating around the 3 big destination bundles, including the “Old Quarter” with Dong Lac communal temple, Dong Xuan market, Quan Chuong gate, Bach Ma temple, Ta Hien night street, etc. “Hoan Kiem Lake area” with Ngoc Son Temple, National Museum of Vietnamese History, Hanoi Opera House, Vietnamese Women’s Museum, Hoa Lo prison, Quan Su pagoda and “Ba Dinh Area” with Ba Dinh Square, One-Pillar pagoda, Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum, Ho Chi Minh Museum,  Presidential Palace Historical Site, Imperial Citadel of Thang Long, Vietnam Military History Museum,etc. The tour bus will pick up guests at the accomodations from 8a.m till 4p.m, once every 30-45 minutes.
Generate combinational power
According to Mr. Phung Quang Thang – Director of Hanoitourist, it has the attraction of Van Mieu – Quoc Tu Giam that brought 3 million visitors to Hanoi each year that inspired the managerial entities of the destinations in the area to integrate into a chain of service with a variety of themes.
3 agencies have conducted researches, evaluating the potential and the strengths of the participants to create a new tourism product – the “Traditional passion for learning” that connect Van Mieu – Quoc Tu Giam and Vietnam Museum of Fine art. By visiting the site considered as the first university of Vietnam, the visitors will learn about how the tradition of “honoring the master and respecting the teachings” is expressed in Van Mieu – Quoc Tu Giam. That culture quality is also expressed in the artworks and sculpting pieces over the history, which are preserved in Vietnam Museum of Fine art, such as: “The Mandarin’s homecoming”, “The General’s homecoming”, “The Doctor’s homecoming”, “studying alphabets with Uncle Ho”, “Study hours”, “To school, torch in hand”, “Reading, baby sibling in arms”, “Everyone’s at school”, “To school”, “Supplementary lesson”…
In addition to exploring the cultural traditions of Vietnamese people, the visitors also get to experience the value of art through meeting the craftsmen and artists, or  through trying a few steps in the process of making traditional handicrafts. One of the sites where this service is available is the Dong Lac communal temple at 38 Hang Dao, Hanoi.
All the participants’ efforts are meant to connect the museums, destinations, and historical sites in the city, to create the combinational power so as to constantly enhance the service quality for visitors, especially for solo travellers and group travellers, and to contribute to the city’s growth. We hope the network will expand to more historical sites, museums and traditional handicrafts villages of Hanoi and of the entire country.
The “Golden Tour around Hanoi” opened in cooperation with Gonow transport exchange consists of 3 component tours: The first departs at 8 a.m, includes: visiting Van Mieu – Quoc Tu Giam, Vietnam Museum of Fine art, Dong Lac communal temple, the old quarter and returning to the hotel. The second tour, departs at 13:30 using the same schedule as the first. The third, departs 8 giờ, includes: visiting Ba Dinh Square, Presidential Palace Historical Site Van Mieu – Quoc Tu Giam and Vietnam Museum of Fine art, lunch, visiting Hanoi Opera House, Hoan Kiem lake, Ngoc Son Temple, Dong Lac communal temple, the Old Quarter, doing shopping at the Old Quarter and returning to the hotel. The services include tour guide, tour bus, site’s entrance tickets and scheduled meals.

We hope this will become a spotlight, the most unique tourism product of Hanoi in particular and Vietnam in general. And we also hope it will open up an era in which tourist companies could assist the tourists in making the most of the experience with Vietnamese artistic, traditional, cultural and historical values. On October 6^th, the Prime Minister signed and issued the resolution no.103/NQ-CP Action plan to implement the resolution no. 08-NQ/TW on 1/16/2017 của of the Ministry of Politics term XII on developing tourism industry into a leading economy, the most crucial of which is to provide the tourists with the best condition. Thus, I appreciate the effort of the participants and hope that these tours, routes and products will provide the best for the exploration demand of the customers.

The experiential product “Traditional passion for studying”, instead of going in and out through the front gate, we would instruct the tourists to leave through the gate on Van Mieu street; and establish the signage system that would help the tourists gain better access to Vietnam Museum of Fine Art. By doing that, we hope to show the tourists the various values of Vietnamese culture Việt Nam currently stored in these neighboring destinations. And at the same time, we hope it would tell a consistent story about Vietnamese traditional passion for learning, and would leave a good impression in the tourists. In the near future, deploy the automatic guide service in 8 different languages, employing cutting-edge technology and rich content to cater better for the demand of tourists from many different countries.