A team comprising the city’s tourism inspection and immigration police force found five Chinese nationals illegally operating tourist and accounting services in Son Tra District’s Nature Love Company Ltd.
Leaflets in Chinese of code of conduct for tourists are published at Da Nang City’s airports, stations, destinations and hotels, besides resorts and public areas.
During an inspection on Monday, the team found that the five Chinese, who had entered Vietnam as tourists, had violated immigration, residency and labor regulations in the city.
The Chinese persons did not declare to the local administration their intention to reside, and started working in the country without permission, 15 days after entering Vietnam.
Deputy Director of the city’s tourism department Tran Chi Cuong said the department in co-operation with the public security force, had completed a report on the case before proposing a strict fine for the violations committed by the Chinese nationals.
He said the Chinese had worked as tourist guides and had done accounting jobs for the company, which handled Chinese tour groups visiting destinations in the city and the central region.
It’s the second such case in which the city’s police and tourism inspection team have found Chinese nationals illegally operating tourist services and violating residency laws.
On July 6, the city fined six Chinese nationals VNĐ125 million (about US$5,500) for illegally operating tourist services and violating residency laws.
According to the city’s tourism department, at least 60 Chinese guides were working illegally in the city, and most of the Chinese travel agencies handling Chinese tour groups disguised operations with a Vietnamese licence, as directed by Chinese managers.
Local Vietnamese guides had made a video clip and taken a photo of a Chinese guide Xue Chun Zhe, who had presented a distorted view of Vietnamese history and culture during a tour of the Linh Ung Pagoda and My Khe Beach.
Last month, the city’s tourism department revoked the business licence of a local travel agency for nine months, after one of its Chinese tourists burnt Vietnamese money in a downtown bar in the city.
Da Nang’s tourism department distributed 5,000 leaflets in Chinese last week, promoting a code of conduct for Chinese tourists at airports, stations, destinations and hotels, besides resorts and public areas.
The central city hosted 600,000 Chinese tourists in the first half this year, an 83 per cent increase in comparison with last year. Chinese tourists comprised a quarter of all tourists visiting the city.
The city’s Party Secretary Nguyen Xuan Anh said the city did not discriminate Chinese tourists from other foreign tourists, but the city would fine visitors who violated the law or committed any wrongdoing.
The city plans to establish a tourism police force as a pilot project to boost security for tourists and the tourism sector in the 2016-2020 period.
Khanh Hoa: Travel firm fined for hiring illegal foreign workers
Silent Bay Travel and Trade Co. Ltd was fined 80 million VND, or 3,590 USD, by the Khanh Hoa provincial People’s Committee on July 19 for bad record keeping and employing illegal foreign workers.
As a tour operator in resort Nha Trang City, the south central province of Khanh Hoa, its International Tour Operator license had been withdrawn by the Vietnam National Administration of Tourism.
The travel agency was found providing services to 6,187 tourists, mostly from China, from February to May this year without keeping adequate records of these people.
The company has also recruited 64 Chinese tour guides without work permits to work in Vietnam. The guides have been then deported by the province after the violation was discovered.
According to Vietnam’s tourism regulations, foreign travel firms must work with Vietnamese agencies and use local tour guides if they want to bring tourists into the country.
The People’s Committee of Khanh Hoa province has requested its Department of Tourism to tighten control on local travel business and enforce stricter penalties for foreign travel agencies and tour guides operating illegally as well as domestic firms helping them offer unauthorised services in the locality.
It also urged for a proper policy to better serve and manage the increasing number of Chinese and Russian vacationers to Vietnam.
It was estimated that Khanh Hoa welcomed more than 200,000 Chinese holidaymakers in the first half of 2016, a five-fold increase from the same period last year.
VNS/VNA
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