Despite a number of promotions to attract visitors, Vietnam's tourism industry continues to face obstacles because of lack of cooperation between agencies.

After the SARS outbreak was brought under control in Vietnam in 2003, airline companies made an effort to cooperate with luxury hotels in order to draw more visitors. But tour companies had a bleaker view of the industry and were not receptive to these efforts.

In 2009, in an attempt to stimulus tourism, the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism called on tour agencies and hotels to lower their prices by 30-50%, but the request met with resistance. Hotel operators said, lacking any specific forecast about the drop in the sector, there was no benefit for them in lowering their prices, rendering stimulus programmes unsuccessful.

Pham Manh Ha, head of a tourism company, said that their foreign partners complained that their tour costs in Vietnam were much higher than in neighboring countries, making Vietnam less attractive to visitors.

The price for a four or five star hotel room in Bangkok is 20-30% cheaper than in Vietnam. The tour agencies said they regularly see sudden price increases in Vietnam, especially for transport fees.

Meanwhile, Vietnamese agencies have been lax in developing strategies to predict market trends and have also shown themselves to be slow in reacting to sudden drops in numbers of international tourists.

"It's necessary for us to collaborate in reducing costs in order to attract more foreign tourists, which will prop up the industry and create more jobs," said Pham Trung Luong, Deputy Director of the Institute of Tourism Research and Development.

Currently many estimates show that tourism companies in other countries, such as Russia and South Korea, are ahead of their Vietnamese counterparts in attracting tourists to Vietnam.