**5. Conclusions and Implications**

Attracting international tourists is an essential task for countries as international tourists bring significant income, foreign currency, and jobs to countries, especially potential tourism countries. Therefore, to attract tourists and implement an appropriate pricing policy, investing in tourism infrastructure development to make the destination more competitive and attractive are critical measures. This is the reason why this study examines the impact of investment in tourism infrastructure development on attracting international tourists from empirical research in Vietnam through panel data from 1995 to 2019.

The three types of tourism infrastructure used in this study are transport and communications infrastructure, restaurants and hotels, and entertainment infrastructure. After testing the stationarity and cointegration of the data, this study used the ARDL approach to examine the impact of three tourism infrastructure components on attracting international visitors to Vietnam in the long-run and short-run. In the long-run, investment in tourism infrastructure components has a positive and robust impact on attracting international visitor arrivals. The most decisive impact is investment in transport and communications infrastructure, followed by investment in the hotel and restaurant industry, and finally investment in recreation facilities. However, the short-run impacts of these three types of tourism infrastructure also differ in both sign and magnitude. In addition, different impacts of the three tourism infrastructure components in the short-run on attracting international visitors in general and in each of the leading international visitor markets to Vietnam are also found.

The contribution of this study impinges on two aspects. Firstly, from a theoretical perspective, this study enriches the role of investment in tourism infrastructure in tourism development with three components: transport and communications infrastructure, hotel and restaurant industry, and recreation facilities. Second, from a practical perspective, the study points out the different impacts of components of tourism infrastructure and their specific impact on attracting international visitors to Vietnam as the basis for policies for tourism development.

Overall, investment in transport and communications infrastructure drives economic growth and social development. However, the significant impact on tourism growth in Vietnam revealed in this study justifies the need for government investment in transport infrastructure and information and communications. Besides, investment in the hotel and restaurant industry will provide accommodation, food and beverage services for tourists, especially international tourists. Furthermore, investment in recreation facilities will make the destination more attractive to visitors. Therefore, the positive and vital role of investment in the three tourism infrastructure components is shown in this study because they are the most critical components in the tourism product chain experienced by tourists. On the other hand, although Vietnam has substantial tourism potential, its tourism infrastructure is still limited, so investing in components of tourism infrastructure becomes increasingly pressing to attract visitors in general and international visitors in particular.

Unlike an investment in transport and communications infrastructure that is primarily financed by government funds, investment in the hotel and restaurant industry, as well as recreation facilities, can mobilize the resources of the entire society, especially the private sector, because this is a highly commercialized and profitable sector, and is not prohibitively subject to government control. Thus, internationally and in Vietnam in particular, there is an urgent need for investment incentives for the private sector to help develop these areas.

Although some valuable results have been obtained, this study still has some limitations. Due to data limitations, this study only explores the role of investment in three groups of components without separating each component in detail as well as from different capital sources to see the different roles of the economy sectors. In addition, heterogeneity among visitor arrival groups has not been considered. These issues may provide opportunities for further study.

**Funding:** This research was funded by University of Economics and Law, Vietnam National University, Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam, under grant number 3-2021.

**Institutional Review Board Statement:** Not applicable.

**Informed Consent Statement:** Not applicable.

**Data Availability Statement:** Data on international tourists to Vietnam is collected from various sources, accessible from: https://www.gso.gov.vn/px-web-2/?pxid=V0825&theme=Th%C6%B0 %C6%A1ng%20m%E1%BA%A1i%2C%20gi%C3%A1%20c%E1%BA%A3; http://thongke.tourism. vn/index.php/statistic/sub/6; https://www.e-unwto.org/action/doSearch?ConceptID=2473&target= topic. Investment data is available in the GSO statistical yearbooks, accessible from: https://www. gso.gov.vn/du-lieu-va-so-lieu-thong-ke/2020/02/nien-giam-thong-ke-1997/; https://www.gso. gov.vn/du-lieu-va-so-lieu-thong-ke/2020/02/nien-giam-thong-ke-2000/; https://www.gso.gov. vn/du-lieu-va-so-lieu-thong-ke/2020/02/nien-giam-thong-ke-2005/; https://www.gso.gov.vn/ du-lieu-va-so-lieu-thong-ke/2019/10/nien-giam-thong-ke-2010-2/; https://www.gso.gov.vn/dulieu-va-so-lieu-thong-ke/2016/06/nien-giam-thong-ke-2015/; https://www.gso.gov.vn/du-lieuva-so-lieu-thong-ke/2021/07/nien-giam-thong-ke-2021/.

**Acknowledgments:** The author is grateful to the three anonymous reviewers and academic editor whose comments have contributed to improving the quality of this paper.

**Conflicts of Interest:** The author declares no conflict of interest.
