Vietnam will soon promote the country’s image on China’s television channels this year with an aim to attract visitors from the biggest market of Vietnam’s inbound tourism sector.

The Travel Department under the Vietnam National Administration of Tourism (VNAT) says a film about the country’s tourism and an advertising video clip would be aired on China’s national television channel and other TV channels of Sichuan, Chongqing, and Hubei provinces in the coming time. This will be the first time the country’s tourism body makes a publicity program on these channels.

VNAT has plans to promote tourism images once a day during three days on end on China’s national channel, and three times per day during one month on the other three channels.

The department is inviting professional companies to make the 15-minute film about Vietnam’s tourism and the 30-second advertising video clip for the publicity program.

VNAT last year organized two promotion trips in many provinces and cities of China including Shanghai, Henan, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Sichuan, Chongqing, and Wuhan. Cooperation agreements between tourism agencies and entrepreneurs of the two sides were inked during the trips.

Via promotion activities, VNAT has expected to recover the number of tourists from the neighboring country this year. The number of arrivals from China hit a record in 2004 with more than 778,000 people but the number has fallen strongly after that year. Vietnam received nearly 528,000 Chinese travelers last year, down 18% compared to 2008.