The Government of Vietnam has expressed clear concern for tourism development by issuing support policies, including the one-year visa exemption for people from five Western European countries and a five-year exemption for people from Belarus. The following is the interview with Mr Trinh Dang Thanh, Deputy Director the Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism of Quang Ninh province, on the visa waiver policy and its impacts on tourism development of Quang Ninh – a province famous for its UNESCO-recognised sites. Giang Tu reports.The Government of Vietnam has issued a visa waiver policy for six countries. What do you think about this policy and how will it affect your province’s tourism?
The tourism potential of Vietnam in general and of Quang Ninh in particular is enormous. Thus, like other localities, Quang Ninh always hopes the central government will have effective tourism development policies. Recently, the government has introduced many solutions to quicken Vietnam’s tourism development, including solutions to improve business performances and remove weaknesses in tourism development. In particular, the visa exemption policy for six countries is soon enough to give a helping hand for the tourism industry of Vietnam in general and of Quang Ninh in particular.
International tourist arrivals to Quang Ninh totalled 2.6 million in 2014, accounting for 40 percent of total tourist arrivals to the province in the year. Therefore, the province expects very much from recent policies of the Prime Minister. Quang Ninh highly appreciates the actions of ministries and branches to help the province to welcome more guests from many countries. The province hopes the Government will waive visa for people from more countries.
What plans has Quang Ninh province carried out to synchronise with Government policies?
When the Prime Minister promulgated visa waiver policy as mentioned above, Quang Ninh has worked out many plans and concrete actions to develop its tourism industry. Specifically, Quang Ninh has deployed Resolution 92 on a number of tourism development guidelines; Directive of the Government and most recently Directive 14 of the Government to address limitations and weaknesses, promote tourism development and enhance tourism advertising efficiency. The province bases on local situations and conditions when it carries out these policies. If localities do not take action, policies of the central and local governments will be useless. As a tourist hub, Quang Ninh province has applied many policies and mechanisms in support of tourism businesses and informed them of new policies. Besides, the province also requested localities with tourist destinations such as Ha Long, Mong Cai, Van Don, Co To to have corrective measures to rectify local tourism business environment. In addition, Quang Ninh focuses on training knowledge and languages of six visa-exempt countries for tour guides and tourism workers.
What are specific instructions of Quang Ninh province to help tourism companies to carry out policies effectively?
Quang Ninh is very rich in tourism resources. To have good solutions, we must first of all have right policies. Quang Ninh province has issued Resolution 07 on tourism development to 2020 and to 2030 in addition to Quang Ninh tourism development master plan ratified on July 4, 2014. The province also puts a premium on transport infrastructure solutions, particularly tourism infrastructure, on environmental protection solutions – the factors to sustainable tourism development, on human resource solutions; and on community awareness-raising solutions. From these foundations, Quang Ninh has more specific plans and action programmes for particular groups of customers, local communities and enterprises.
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