Tieu Nhu Phuong, a Viet Kieu in Germany, who returned to Vietnam to attend the program “The spring in the homeland” held by the National Committee for Overseas Vietnamese on January 15 in Hanoi, said that his business in Vietnam in 2011 was very satisfactory.

Phuong admitted that the exports of fine arts and handicrafts, the main products of his company, to Europe and the US dropped sharply last year. However, Phuong has been very succeeding with a five star resort Da Lat Eden in Lam Dong province, which has been operational since last May.

Phuong said that the difficulties anticipated for 2012 would be just “temporary difficulties”, and that it is now the right time to make investment, especially in the tourism real estate sector.

“I am optimistic about my resort. The most important thing when you make investment in the tourism sector is that you can choose the advantageous positions. Besides, you need to accurately valuate the potentials of the localities,” Phuong said, adding that Da Lat proves to be a place with great potentials.

Tourism real estate is also the big interest of many other Viet Kieu. Phan Bich Thien, the Managing Director of a four star hotel in Hungary – Fried Palace – said that one of the factors that help Fried obtain the title “the hotel of 2011” is the Vietnamese style in the design and the use of fine arts, including the bamboo made floor. Besides, the Vietnamese traditional dishes such as nem (spring rolls), pho (noodle soup) have also been attracting travelers.

Thien has expressed her will to cooperate with domestic enterprises to develop tourism and popularize Vietnamese images to the world. Recently, the most well known newspaper in Hungary offered a tour to Vietnam as the award for its reader. This shows that Vietnam is really an attractive destination.

Being the owner of a travel firm - Hit Voyages - in Paris, which specializes in organizing tours to Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia, Tran Tu Nghia, a Viet Kieu in France, said that foreigners like traveling to Vietnam because of the beautiful landscapes with different characteristics for different localities, from the northwest to the central region’s coastal areas and the Mekong Delta in the south.

Besides, Vietnam has a long history for foreigners to learn, and it is a safe tourism destination. Therefore, he has affirmed that if Vietnamese travel firms, restaurants and hotels can do well, Vietnam will still be able to attract travelers in 2012, despite the economic difficulties.

Most recently, the Vietnamese Culture Center in France organized a special event, in which Vietnam called for foreign investment to the Vietnamese Nation’s Culture-Tourism Village. The event caught the special attention of many French businesses and Viet Kieu businessmen in France.

The project on the Vietnamese Nation’s Culture-Tourism Village is a huge project, which was kicked off in 2007. The village is expected to cover an area of 1500 hectares in Dong Mo, just 40 kilometers west from Hanoi. This is a part of the chain of the tourism centers in the north.

This was for the second time the village organized an event to call for foreign investment. In 2009, a similar event was organized in the UK, while in 2011, a series of events were organized in France to promote investment.

Several months ago, the Thac Ba Lake eco-tourism service in Yen Bai province was put into operation. This is the project developed by NET, a real state consultancy and development company. The investors are Le Thanh Binh and Nguyen Minh Ngoc, the Viet Kieu in Poland, and a Yen Bai-based private company.

Thac Ba is one of the three biggest artificial lakes in Vietnam, which was set up in 1970, when the first hydropower plant in Vietnam became operational

C. V