Extending visa exemption for Western European nations’ citizens

Extending visa exemption for Western European nations’ citizens

The Hanoitimes – The Government on June 30 issued a resolution to extend the visa exemption for citizens from the five Western European countries, including the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Spain and Italy.

According to this Resolution, the visa exemption for citizens from the five Western European countries, including the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Spain and Italy, who stay in Vietnam for a maximum of 15 days, will be extended one more year to June 30, 2017, regardless of the type of passports and immigration purposes, on the basis of fully meeting the conditions prescribed by the law of Vietnam.
The Vietnam National Administration of Tourism hoped that the visa waiver and tourism stimulus programmes would attract 1.1 million arrivals from those markets in the next few years, up 50 percent from 2015.

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Ministers, heads of ministerial-level agencies, Government agencies, chairmen of provinces and centrally-run cities shall implement this Resolution. The resolution takes into effect from the date of signing.
After one year of offering visa waivers for the five Western European countries, travellers from these markets have been on the rise.
According to the statistics of the Vietnam National Administration of Tourism, the number of tourists from these markets to Vietnam in the first 6 months of this year rose up 62,029 arrivals over the same period last year. This is a considerable growth compared to the rate in the 2010-2014 period.
Vietnam at present has visa waivers in place for 22 countries, including nine member states in the Association of South East Asia Nations.
The country targets to receive 8.5 million foreign visitors and 60 million domestic travellers by the end of this year, gaining a total 370 trillion VND in revenue.

Thu Minh

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