Vietnam tourism authority seeks visa waiver for 19 countries

[webfact]

Vietnam tourism authority seeks visa waiver for 19 countries



VIETNAM: -- The Vietnam National Administration of Tourism (VNAT) says it is proposing visa waivers for more countries and that foreign arrivals in the last three months of the year are expected to surge, Thanhnien News reported.

VNAT director Nguyen Van Tuan said in a recent report on the government website that there are “signs of recovery” in the tourism sector.

Tourist numbers in July, August and September were all higher than the corresponding month last year, ending 13 months of declines, including a sharp fall of 23.4 percent in March.

He said his agency is proposing visa exemption for passport holders from 19 new markets, without naming them and providing any timeframe.

Tuan said the industry has been given a boost thanks to the recent visa waiver policy for tourists from Germany, France, the UK, Italy, Spain and Belarus. The country has already waived visa requirements for visitors from Russia, Japan, South Korea, Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Finland.

The government has also allowed Viet kieu (overseas Vietnamese), their foreign spouses and children to visit Vietnam without a visa. More than 4.5 million Vietnamese are working and living outside Vietnam, according to official data.

Tuan said more promotional campaigns will be launched in an attempt to increase foreign arrivals from the current 5.7 million to 8 million by the end of the year. His agency is consulting foreign agents to make more videos introducing Vietnam and broadcast them on international TV channels.

The industry will also follow examples in Thailand and Malaysia to promote Vietnam on YouTube and Facebook.

Source: http://englishnews.thaipbs.or.th/vietnam-tourism-authority-seeks-visa-waiver-for-19-countries


-- Thai PBS 2015-10-05

[BKKdreaming]

I hope the USA is on that list , if so i might take a some flights from BKK for a few days each , but getting a Visa for a couple days is not worth it.....

We will see

[thaimat]

Vietnam tourist industry surging, while Thailand's is...?

[thaimat]

Vietnam tourist industry surging, while Thailand's is...?

Vietnam looking for ways to ease and simply visa for tourist while Thailand...?

[HerbalEd]

Would be nice to know what those 19 countries are. Too much work for the journalist writer I suppose.

[quandow]

What a HORRIBLE picture - send us your fat, your lazy, your indigent. Even assisted living ads use better looking old folks.

[Sam Jones]

The industry will also follow examples in Thailand and Malaysia to promote Vietnam on YouTube and Facebook.

I would like to advice not to do that, Vietnam ... unless you want to be the laughing stock of the World - TAT in Thailand has the most ridiculous and idiotic people known to man in charge and they are clueless about it them self ...

Edited October 5, 2015 by Sam Jones

[Jingthing]

Opening this to USA citizens would be a really nice gesture. We're friends now and Americans love them some Pho!

It would also be amazingly good publicity for their tourism industry as well.

I would think it would be front page news in the U.S.

Normally visa tweaks aren't very big news. That would be.

Edited October 5, 2015 by Jingthing

[TerryLH]

"Vietnam looking for ways to ease and simply visa for tourist while Thailand...?" (sic)

Thailand has for years been giving visa exempt entries to tourists from many of the countries mentioned.

[ggt]

Vietnam is a great place to visit...the smiles appear to be more genuine...the ladies are friendly and approachable...food and lodging is agreeable...scenery is wonderful...

But be careful...when you fly back to Thailand...you will be thinking about how you can sell everything...dump the gf (without getting killed)...and escape...

[TerrylSky]

ahhh…. Thailand may have a little competition… if Viet Nam does't have a two tiered pricing system! On the other hand, if they do have a two tiered pricing system Thailands system is here to stay if every country does the same. If so, maybe EVERY country should charged foreigners more. That would be interesting.

[MyFriend You]

Vietnam tourist industry surging, while Thailand's is...?

Tanking 'cept for the quality Tourists from China, Romania, and a few others.

[BKKdreaming]

ahhh. Thailand may have a little competition if Viet Nam does't have a two tiered pricing system! On the other hand, if they do have a two tiered pricing system Thailands system is here to stay if every country does the same. If so, maybe EVERY country should charged foreigners more. That would be interesting.

Most people do not even know it dual pricing as the sneaky Thias used Thai numbers for the lower price !

Hopefully the Vietnamese learn from this and hide the lower price too

But really other than being pissed off a little , does $5-$10 extra after spending $1000s on your holiday really matter......

And yes Dream World north of BKK does this , sneaky sneaky

[keeniau96]

I would like to revisit VN with Thai wife, been a few years since last time. But too much hassle re the visa for just a few days there. Add USA to the visa-exempt list and we will go, and so will many others.

[Kiwisailor]

Be prepared for surprise bills in Vn, especially in the north. Prices often bear little relationship to those on the menu, when you point it out they shrug their shoulders and recalculate and will then often try to short change you. Not always, but often enough to get up your nose. Many taxi drivers seem to have been trained in Phuket with meters attached to what appears to be a power drill. Check online before arrival for the names of several reputable taxi companies.

We've enjoyed our times in Vn over the years but this year we found it less enjoyable. Russian tour groups were well down on previous years but their numbers are more than compensated by the surge in Chinese tour groups and, to a lesser extent, Chinese independent travellers.

Having said all that, a couple of weeks (visa free entry) in a country where an A/C room on the beach is ~20 USD/day and beer is under 50c US for a 420 ml bottle makes for a nice change.

[IMA_FARANG]

I have been to Vietnam 4 times since 2012.

The Vietnamese PEOPLE are quite happy to have American citizens as visitors.

In fact they are eager to speak to Americans especially in Ho Chi Minh city.

Almost 50% of the Vietnamese living now were not alive or very young prior to 1975 and the "victory" over the Americans and "liberation" and "unification".

The population of Vietnam is young, with no memories of the American war.

This may not be true of the Government, but in my personal experience and opinion, even in other so-called "democratic" and "progressive" counties the "government" is also still 20 years behind the PEOPLE in their opinions also.

And that last sentence refers to the U.K. and U.S.A. as well.

Bottom line, if the governments involved both made it easier for Americans to visit (please note the plural there), the number of tourists and visitors could increase rapidly into Vietnam in the next couple of years.

As Thailand's tourism won't, unless they improve the quality of their tourist experience here in Thailand.

Tourism is on he way up in Vietnam, as surely as tourism is not on the way up in Thailand.

Edited October 6, 2015 by IMA_FARANG

[Jingthing]

I've only been to North Vietnam but about 15 years ago and I was singled out for being American. I was asked many times why don't more Americans come? Not in a hostile way. They really wanted more Americans to come! The visa was a hassle then and that's one reason I haven't returned.

Many years ago I worked with an Englishman who used to be an expat in Singapore and he was one of the first travel industry pros in the U.S. to work on opening up American tourism to Vietnam specifically. I didn't think he was crazy back then, but a lot of people did!

Edited October 6, 2015 by Jingthing

[Too]

I hope the USA is on that list , if so i might take a some flights from BKK for a few days each , but getting a Visa for a couple days is not worth it.....

We will see

I'm afraid not as long as Na Noi is the capital of VN...

[dpeterk]

I hope the USA is on that list , if so i might take a some flights from BKK for a few days each , but getting a Visa for a couple days is not worth it.....

We will see

Per another report, Vietnam is working on a one-year tourist visa for Americans but has made no indication of WHEN that visa will happen.

http://www.travelpulse.com/news/destinations/vietnam-to-give-yearlong-tourist-visas-to-all-americans.html

[Kaoboi Bebobp]

A story like this comes out just about every week. Don't believe it until the decree is signed by the PM.

I've read that even after 3 months of visa waivers for the select Euro countries, tourist arrivals went up but they're still way down overall. If it were easy to to just open the tourist gates, they would have done it by now because tourist arrivals have been sinking for more than a year now. The problem is, too many third-party services, probably owned by immigration officers, make a lot of money off these 30-day tourist visa sales.

I used to go there a lot for several days at a time. But I won't pay the $65US anymore until they cut the fees or establish free entry and, most important, make it easier to get a visa, especially at the expensive embassy. You can't even find the visa fees on a Viet embassy web site anywhere that I've looked. Actually, the Viet embassy web sites are appallingly bad.

On top of all that, it's gotten harder to get longer visas, with 3-month ones being the best you can do through normal channels ($130US/4500 baht in Cambodia). So most resident expats have to pay through the nose -- $350 to $500US ($12,000 to $17,000 baht!) -- through back door channels for long term visas. Makes Thailand's 1900 baht look a great deal.

Edited October 13, 2015 by Kaoboi Bebobp