Visa policies must be relaxed to attract more foreign arrivals

Vo Anh Tai, deputy general director of Saigontourist group, predicts that there will be numerous challenges to luring international visitors moving towards the end of the year due to the COVID-19 impact, conflicts, inflation, and complicated formalities in terms of granting visas to visitors.

Tai added that international tourism remains gloomy moving into the fourth quarter of the year as there are few bookings coming from the Nordic and Australian markets, noting that the tourism sector will only focus on domestic visitors and arrivals from the Asian markets, such as the Republic of Korea, Thailand, and India.

He therefore proposed simplifying procedures for electronic visa issuance as a means of making it more convenient for international tourists to enter the country.

Furthermore, he went on to emphasise the necessity of expanding the list of countries and territories which have been granted e-visas, as well as strengthening linkages with nations usually receive a large number of international visitors in Southeast Asia, such as Thailand and Singapore, in order to launch more tours to Vietnam.

Sharing this perspective, Nguyen Manh Quyen, vice chairman of the Hanoi People's Committee, pointed out that policies related to e-visa issuance remain a bottleneck in terms of receiving international visitors.

Quyen suggested that the Government strongly consider increasing the visa exemption period from 15 to 30 days, as well as simplifying the electronic visa issuance process in a bid to the visa application process for international visitors.

Martin Koerner, board member of the German Business Association in Vietnam, also analysed that Vietnamese tourism is in the process of facing fierce competition with other Southeast Asian countries, such as Thailand, Singapore, and Indonesia, all of which have increasingly exempted visas to improve competitiveness and boost international visitor numbers.

Thailand has moved to increase the visa-free period from 30 to 45 days for tourists from nearly 60 countries, while Singapore has also allowed citizens of several European and American countries to receive a 90-day visa exemption, in addition to a 30-day visa exemption for citizens from more than 100 countries, he said.

He noted that Vietnam currently exempts visas for citizens of only 24 countries, far fewer than some other countries in ASEAN.

Moreover, the existing visa exemption is only 15 days, far shorter than other ASEAN countries, which is inconsistent with reality as travelers from Europe typically want to spend longer whilst in Vietnam.

He said that direct and long-haul flights from Europe require an average of 12 hours and are often overnight, but the visa-free period in Vietnam for Europeans is only 13 days, adding that visitors wish to stay longer and spend much money during their stay in Vietnam.

He therefore recommended increasing the visa-free period for international visitors to 30 days as foreigners’ travel plans are currently limited within the tight 15-day restriction.