Int’t arrivals slide for 12th month

Data of the General Statistics Office (GSO) showed that internationalarrivals in the first five months of this year have gone down by 12.6%year-on-year to over 3.27 million.

Guests from most of Vietnam’s major visitor-generating markets havedropped, except for Japan and Taiwan with modest increases of 5-7%.

Now is the off-peak travel season for inbound tours in Vietnam.However, local travel companies worry about their performance in thecoming months as their foreign partners said the situation would notimprove anytime soon. 

According to the Vietnam Tourism Association (VITA), the depreciationof some foreign currencies like the euro, yen and Australian dollaragainst the U.S. dollar have made U.S. dollar-denominated Vietnam toursmore expensive. The economic malaise in some major visitor-generatingmarkets for Vietnam is also to blame.    

Therefore, VITA has proposed the Government exempt all internationalvisitors from the visa fee of US$45 from July to December as this wouldhelp them save not only the visa fee but also other associated servicecharges when applying for visas.

The organization has also suggested the Government approve value addedtax (VAT) breaks and delay corporate income tax payments for travelenterprises and hotels for six months or one year so that they can havemoney for promotion programs to attract foreign travelers.

But the Government has yet to approve the proposals and applyunilateral visa exemptions to tourists from more majorvisitor-generating markets.

Nguyen Van Nen, minister-chairman of the Government Office, told theGovernment’s regular monthly media conference in Hanoi on Wednesday thatthe Government discussed visa exemptions for travelers from somecountries at its recent cabinet meeting but more time would be needed todecide as there were differences over this matter.

Nen said the Government would create favorable conditions for foreigntourists based on relations between Vietnam and their nations. The PrimeMinister will issue a directive to remove hindrances in the tourismsector to spur its development.   

In a related development, the Government has approved setting up the Tourism Development Fund to support this sector.

But the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism has suggestedcollecting an accommodation service charge of VND10,000-20,000 per night(45-92 U.S. cents) from international visitors but has yet to detailthe collection method.   

Int’t arrivals slide for 12th month

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