Despite efforts to lure tourists by holding down tour prices, the number of foreign tourists to Vietnam still felt in the past four months. The national tourism agency has announced that it will waive visa fees for travelers who come to Vietnam under the “Impressive Vietnam” program.

Foreign visitors in Hanoi.

VNAT launched the “Impressive Vietnam” (Ấn Tượng Việt Nam) program in early 2009, featuring 99 tours with prices slashed between 30 to 40 percent. At present, 85 travel firms and 118 hotels are participating, offering over 300 cut-rate tours. Since the program was launched four months ago, the number of domestic travelers rose by 35 to 50 percent year on year but the number of foreign visitors to Vietnam has fallen by by 18%.

VNAT senior official Vu The Binh told the media on May 12 that some countries have imposed restrictions on their own citizens’ overseas trips during the time of economic crisis. Such controls by South Korea have particularly impacted the Vietnam tourism market.

“It is forecast that the world tourism industry will not grow or may even decline this year. The situation is difficult but we don’t plan to lower our 2009 target,” Binh said.

Binh said that Prime Minister Dung has agreed to exempt visa fees for visitors who buy the promotional tours. VNAT has combined with the Public Security Ministry to work out the mechanism for implementing this policy as soon as possible. The current visa fees for foreign visitors to Vietnam are between dozens to over one hundreds US dollar.

VNAT will boost advertisement to lure travelers from the key markets, e.g., the ASEAN countries, China, France, South Korea, Japan, the US, and caravan tourists to Vietnam.

Promoting local tourism will be VNAT’s focus from now to September 2009. Binh said the prices of local tours have dropped by 30% so they are competitive to tours to other Southeast Asian nations. Under the “Impressive Vietnam” program, VNAT has called on tourism service providers to slash their service prices. Some hotels and resorts in the central region have cut prices by 25 to 30 percent. The cost of train tickets from Hanoi to Lao Cai, used by most visitors to the northern mountain areas, has decreased by 10%.

Vietnam Airlines has slashed fares up to 60% for some local air routes, enabling 30 travel firms to offer discounted local tours to over 4,000 tourists. These prominently include trans-Vietnam tour and tours to world heritage sites in the central region. Vietnam Air has also agreed to cut down fares for other local routes and increase the percentage of discounted seats from 10% to 20%.

PV