Potential insight into timeline for Vietnam to welcome back international travelers

Vietnam is considering gradually reopening its borders to foreign travellers on the condition that the coming travellers are required to have a vaccine passport. (Illustrative image by vtcnews.vn).

In line with these proposals, the tourism industry will begin the gradual process of reopening its door as the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic is brought under control globally.

One of the main criteria will be for inbound travelers to be vaccinated against COVID-19 and have proof of inoculation before arriving in the country.

“A vaccine passport is expected to give the tourism industry a boost when it is widely applied in future,” says Pham Duy Nghia, director of Viet Foot Travel, in a recent interview with zingnews.vn.

Nghia suggests that Vietnam should strive to reopen its tourism market over the coming months when the pandemic is showing signs of abating, and citizens of various countries are already vaccinated against the virus.

In his opinion, the process of reopening the local tourism market cannot be done overnight, and this task is set to be realised only when the disease is fully kept in check and there is no longer a cause for people to worry.

Sharing the view, Dr. Luong Hoai Nam, a member of the Vietnam Tourism Advisory Board (ATB), states that vaccinations are the only solution to keeping the virus at bay among the community, whilst they are also vital to revitalising tourism, a sector which is currently in a fragile state.

“A vaccine passport enables vaccinated citizens to travel within a country and between a country and another. Once a request for quarantine is in place, nobody wants to travel,” Dr. Nam points out.

Vietnam has been singled out internationally as a success story in the fight against COVID-19. It should press forward to seize upon this chance and utilize its competitive advantages in terms of economic development, including the recovery of the tourism industry, according to the expert.

“We cannot wait until the pandemic is completely wiped out when it comes to the reopening of the international tourism market. It’s time to think about people with a vaccine passport,” Dr. Nam stresses.

It cannot be argued that international travelers are an important part of Vietnamese tourism. When COVID-19 initially broke out, Vietnam shut its borders to prevent the spread of the virus within the community, thereby leading to domestic tourism to be priotised.

Due to this, 56 million domestic holiday-makers travelled across the country throughout 2020, an impressive figure given the fact that two COVID-19 outbreaks hit the country. Despite a 34% fall in traveler numbers, the local tourism market partly made up for the losses caused by the sharp decline in international visitors.

In contrast to the domestic tourism market, Pham Duy Nghia, director of Viet Foot Travel, believes that the arrival of international tourists plays an important role in attracting hard currency to the nation’s coffers.

“I have this simple comparison: the money 30 domestic tourists spend on services is equal to the amount spent by 10 Vietnamese guests going abroad and by three foreign tourists entering Vietnam,” says Nghia.

He anticipates that Vietnam will start to welcome the return of foreign visitors from the beginning of 2022, at a rate of approximately 30% over the same period every year. He believes that the vaccine passport will represent something of a magic wand for people looking to travel internationally.