Removing visa barriers to attract international visitors to Vietnam

With the advantages of beautiful landscapes such as Ha Long Bay, Hue Imperial City, Trang An or most recently Son Doong Cave, Vietnam is always the top choice of international tourists.

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However, in the past 11 months, the number of international visitors to Vietnam has been continuously decreasing, even in the first four months of 2015, the number of international visitors to Vietnam decreased by 12.8% compared to the same period. The reason is external impacts and the management mechanism has many shortcomings.

Faced with major challenges, the tourism industry needs a new breakthrough to boost growth and increase competitiveness in the region.

Visa barriers

One of the important factors that directly affects the decision of international visitors to Vietnam is the visa issuance procedure. Visa issuance is the gateway for international visitors to Vietnam, but the promulgation of the new immigration law on visa regime, abolishing transit, and tightening cruise tourism has made it difficult for businesses and tourists.

Vice President of the Vietnam Tourism Association (VITA) Vu The Binh said that visa exemption has been recognized by the world as the leading solution to attract tourists. While countries in the region and the world have become more open in visa issues, Vietnam's visa procedures are too cumbersome and complicated, making it difficult for Vietnamese tourism to compete with other countries in the region.

Currently, there are 174/229 countries and territories in the world that exempt visas for citizens of major markets such as the US, Germany, and the UK; 173 countries that exempt visas for Canadian citizens; 172 countries that exempt visas for citizens of France, Spain, Belgium, the Netherlands, Italy, Portugal, etc.

Restrictions on visa procedures in Vietnam make it difficult for many businesses to reach and attract foreign customers.

Ms. Nguyen Thi Van Anh, Director of Red Tour Travel Company, said that Vietnam is "going against" the development of tourism in the world. While Singapore exempts visas for tourists in 158 countries, the Philippines 157 countries and Thailand 155 countries, Vietnam is ranked 3rd from the bottom with only 16 countries exempted from visas.

In addition, Vietnam's visa fees are higher than those of other countries in the region. Not to mention that Vietnam's visa procedures are still cumbersome, with more than 10 documents requiring confirmation (photocopy of airline tickets, domestic confirmation, tour guide confirmation).

Mr. Pham Xuan Anh, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Viet Excursions Travel Company, expressed that Vietnam's current visa regulations and processing system are among the "most complicated in Southeast Asia". This has created a "barrier" for Vietnam's tourism industry when compared with other countries in the region.

Many other countries also have visa requirements, such as Myanmar, Laos, Cambodia, Indonesia, Sri Lanka and India, but they all have efficient and user-friendly visa processing systems. For example, tourists to Laos and Cambodia can simply pay a fee in cash or online at the border gate to get a visa, without having to fill out an application or pay an entry fee before traveling.

Indonesia charges a visa fee when the passport is stamped. Myanmar now also has an online E-visa system, which is quick and easy to pay with a credit card.

Visa exemption to create breakthrough

Faced with these challenges, at the conference "Urgent solutions to promote Vietnam tourism growth", VITA proposed a number of urgent solutions; in which visa exemption is considered a key solution to help stimulate the market and remove difficulties for the industry in the present and future.

It has been proven that expanding the visa exemption will bring competitive potential to Vietnam tourism. In 2014, the Japanese and Korean tourist markets reached nearly 650,000 arrivals after 10 years of visa exemption; the Russian tourist market reached nearly 365,000 arrivals last year, achieving a growth rate of nearly 50%/year.

Vietnam's tourism industry has recorded spectacular growth in the number of visitors after 10 years of applying visa exemption for 16 countries (including nine ASEAN countries, four Nordic countries, South Korea, Japan and Russia).

But according to experts, the total number of international visitors reaching nearly 8 million to Vietnam will not achieve a sudden growth rate, and will even stop at this number when many potential tourist markets are still left open.

Representative of Saigontourist Travel Service Company, Mr. Vu Duy Vu, expressed that in order to create a comfortable atmosphere and desire for tourists to return to Vietnam, the Government should gradually exempt visas for the international tourist market.

In the past, visa procedures took a lot of time, greatly affecting cruise tourism. If in the past, cruise tourists were considered transit passengers (only stopping in Vietnam for one day), now they all have to declare their entry, with too many procedures, which invisibly creates a sense of apprehension for tourists. Therefore, many businesses hope that the Government will create conditions for simpler entry and exit procedures, thereby having more time to introduce and promote Vietnamese tourism products to cruise tourists.

Mr. Vu The Binh affirmed that visa exemption is one of the important solutions to promote tourism, but we should not rush into this issue. For now, the criteria for choosing visa-free countries must be key markets; markets that have good political and cultural relations with Vietnam.

The Tourism Association has carefully considered and proposed to the Government to exempt visas for four more markets, namely France, Germany, the UK and Australia, in order to create a breakthrough in these markets; allowing the implementation of the type of receiving transit passengers at international airports for a period of 120 hours.

In addition, the Government is requested to waive visa fees for all international visitors to Vietnam for six months (from July to December 2015).

According to Dulich.vn