Tourism Education in Vietnam

Abstract

This chapter outlines the political history of Vietnam and the importance of tourism and hospitality to its continued development. It describes the growth of tourism and hospitality education provision and how that fits in with the development of a thriving tourism sector of the economy. Vietnam’s control economy has impacted on the ability of the tourism and hospitality industry to respond to customer demands. Many parents felt there was no choice but to send their children overseas for a quality tertiary education, but that is changing with an increasing number of high-quality providers based in Vietnam. Challenges remain in terms of finding enough qualified staff to teach, finding sufficient resources to pay those staff and ensuring that unscrupulous and sub-standard education providers are not allowed to proliferate and damage the reputation of Vietnam’s tourism and hospitality education providers. Students also need to be exposed to current industry standards and experiences and be allowed to develop soft skills which are increasingly important for future development of the industry.