Thanh Nien Newspaper has actively contributed to visa opening.
Dr. Luong Hoai Nam, General Director of Bamboo Airways, tourism expert at the workshop
PHOTO: INDEPENDENCE
Dr. Luong Hoai Nam began his speech: I have been involved in the visa issue for 30 years now, closely linked to Vietnam opening air routes to other countries. I myself have also participated in 3 consecutive seminars related to this topic organized by Thanh Nien Newspaper . In particular, the topic of this seminar is very straightforward and important.
The important thing about Vietnam's visa policy over the past 30 years is the difference in assessment and evaluation between state management agencies and businesses. The state management agencies' viewpoint is that it is very open and has been saying so for 20-30 years. On the contrary, businesses say it is strict, narrow, and difficult to develop... The result of that difference is that the visa policy has not changed to this day. Over the past 30 years, there have been many discussions and debates, and in 2019 tensions reached a peak. "However, after that hot spot of tension, the subsequent discussions and resolution were also better. In which, Thanh Nien Newspaper played an important role, making positive contributions and now this is the third seminar on visas," said Mr. Nam.
Clearly define visa viewpoint as General Secretary To Lam directs
From that reality, the issue arises that we need to change our perspective and approach to visa issues. Dr. Nam quoted General Secretary To Lam when the General Secretary talked about Vietnam's economic growth rate. In recent times, Vietnam's economy has grown strongly compared to the past, but compared to the world, the actual income of Vietnamese people has only reached 5,000 USD, while the goal of becoming a developed country is that per capita income needs to reach 20,000 USD. Thus, we are short of 15,000 USD to reach this level. This is quite a large number and we have a long way to go to become a developed, high-income country. I think this is a very realistic and serious way of looking at it - where are we, what do we need to do and how do we do it?
Workshop 'Which tourists should Vietnam exempt visas for?' organized by Thanh Nien Newspaper
PHOTO: INDEPENDENCE
From the above viewpoint of General Secretary To Lam, let's compare it with the tourism industry to find out where we are? Taking the Covid-19 pandemic as a benchmark, if compared to Thailand before, we were only half of them, then now we are only half of them in terms of international visitors. Thailand has 35 million visitors while Vietnam has 17.5 million. Even a country with a much smaller population than Vietnam, Malaysia, has reached 25 million visitors. On average, one Malaysian receives one international visitor, while five Vietnamese receive only one international visitor.
That is the reality of Vietnam. So what about the potential advantages of Vietnam's tourism industry? Currently, hotel systems in major tourist destinations such as Phu Quoc, Da Nang, Hoi An, Nha Trang, Quang Ninh ... still have a lot of surplus. In terms of aircraft, we do not have surplus like in the hotel sector, but airlines can buy more to serve tourists very simply. We need to determine the point of view, tourism is an on-site export industry without any limits. Vietnam does not lack anything to increase the number of tourists. So what is the mechanism to achieve the growth target, the visa story is very important. Vietnam needs to change the approach to visa from a management tool, adding a clause "international tourism destination competition tool". If we determine such a point of view, Vietnam's tourism industry will have a better chance of success.
Open visa for which guests?
Answering the core question of the workshop, Dr. Nam stated his opinion: For the EU bloc, we occasionally open up to this country or that country; while the EU is a bloc, we should consider exempting the whole bloc. In addition, Australia and New Zealand are also countries with great potential that we can consider opening up to them.
For some other important countries, the US, China, and India are large and important. At the state level, it is advisable to negotiate long-term visas of 5-10 years if they cannot be fully opened.
In addition, according to the direction of Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh, it is possible to immediately open visas for guests attending events, conferences, seminars, etc. to target multinational guests and orient Vietnam as a destination of choice for international events. In addition, it is possible to immediately exempt visas for guests on commercial aircraft - the rich, from flight crew to entourage.
In addition to visa opening, tourism promotion is also an important issue. Dr. Luong Hoai Nam said: Just last week, we welcomed an important guest, the Malaysian tourism minister, who came and convinced us to open a direct flight. Such activities are very meaningful to businesses in the industry. Malaysia and Thailand each have two tourism promotion offices in Vietnam; in contrast, Vietnam has no offices anywhere in the world. Meanwhile, Vietnam's promotion is very weak, mainly in the way of "natural fragrance". Recently, in a National Assembly meeting, the minister in charge of the industry also admitted this weakness. The story of promoting the tourism industry needs to redesign the mechanism in terms of organization and capital.
Source: https://thanhnien.vn/co-the-noi-visa-ngay-cho-khach-toi-viet-nam-tham-du-su-kien-185250424111521398.htm
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