Phu Quoc will be #Vietnam’s ‘test’ island as it re-opens to foreign tourists

Vietnam’s Phu Quoc, the tourist island off the coast of Cambodia in the eastern Gulf of Thailand, is going to start allowing foreign arrivals on a trial basis as part of Vietnam’s roadmap to re-opening to international tourism. As an island the trial will be a more controlled rehearsal for wider re-openings to tourists around Vietnam in the future.

Vietnam’s Deputy Minister of Culture, Sports and Tourism Trinh Thi Thuy says his ministry has been working on a pilot plan to attract international tourists to select islands, Phu Quoc among those considered.

“Tougher measures should be taken to prevent another outbreak of Covid-19.”

Vietnam mostly dodged the Covid-19 bullet with only 26 cases patients still undergoing treatment and has managed to avoid deaths. In total the country has had only 329 reported cases of Covid-19 in a country of 97 million. There has been no community transmission in the last 49 days.

The ministry has assigned the Vietnam National Administration of Tourism and Vietnam Tourism Association to start promoting the island, off southern Vietnam’s Mekong delta, to international tourists.

“There are people living there and domestic tourists visit them, and so the risks of community transmission must be taken into account while allowing international visitors back.”

“We are working with the Health Ministry to develop a set of criteria to ensure safety for international visitors. The tourism industry only wants to receive visitors from countries where the disease has been controlled.”

The tourism ministry is consulting with other ministries on air routes, visa issuance and lifting of travel restrictions for tourists from several countries and regions that have managed to control the pandemic, including Thailand.

The ministry looks to kick-start international tourism by reopening its doors to visitors from some select markets where the Covid-19 pandemic has been controlled – Japan, South Korea and China, Thailand, Australia and New Zealander are some of the countries under consideration for early re-entry back onto Vietnam islands.

Phu Quoc, dubbed ‘pearl island’, has become a popular tourist destination after it built an international airport in 2012 and the government instigated a 30 day visa-free policy for foreigners 6 years ago. Over the past year there were flights from Thailand with Bangkok Airways (out of Bangkok) and via Kuala Lumpur on Air Asia.

The island received over five million visitors last year, up 30% from 2018, including 541,600 foreigners. The country, like most of south east Asia, currently has a ban on scheduled international commercial aviation.
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Source - The Thaiger

#Vietnam considers opening up select islands for foreign tourists

The National Steering Committee for Covid-19 Prevention and Control says they are considering a pilot plan to bring international tourists to some islands.

The country could consider welcoming foreign visitors from countries and territories where there have been no new cases for at least 30 days and launch a pilot plan to bring them to some islands with strict safety measures to ensure health of both locals and foreigners, the committee said Thursday.

Vietnam has suspended international flights since March 25 and banned entry of foreign nationals since March 22 except for special cases.

Earlier, authorities in the Mekong Delta province of Kien Giang proposed welcoming foreign visitors to Vietnam’s largest island, Phu Quoc.

The committee, headed by Deputy PM Vu Duc Dam, has asked the Ministry of Culture, Sport and Tourism to work with Kien Giang authorities to prepare a specific schedule and road map to welcome foreign tourists and report to the committee for consideration.

Phu Quoc, also known as the "pearl island", has become a top tourist destination in Vietnam after it opened an international airport in 2012 and began implementing a 30-day visa-free policy for foreigners since 2014. The island welcomed over five million visitors last year, up 30 percent from 2018. Of these, 541,600 were foreigners.

The Vietnam National Administration of Tourism (VNAT) late last week said it is hoping to kickstart tourism again with select openings for foreign visitors. It said that it was preparing plans to welcome visitors from countries and territories in anticipation of recovery and disease control in key markets like Southeast Asia and Northeast Asia.

WeSwap, the U.K.’s largest travel money provider, this week listed Vietnam among the first economies likely to restart international tourism following the Covid-19 pandemic.

Politico, a U.S.-based political news organization, recently said that Vietnam has responded best to the Covid-19 pandemic in terms of health and economic impacts.

The country has gone 43 days without community transmission of Covid-19. It has reported 327 infections without any deaths. The number of active cases is 49.

With an international flight ban in place, Vietnam saw a 38 percent year-on-year drop in the January-April number of foreign visitors to 3.7 million, accompanied by corresponding 45 percent drop in tourism revenues to VND7.9 trillion ($337 million).

Trinh Thi Thuy, Deputy Minister of Culture, Sports and Tourism, said localities and travel businesses have responded warmly to the domestic tourism stimulus program, offering numerous discounts and new products. "Hotel occupancy rates have reached 80-90 percent and even 100 percent in some places, which are good signs for domestic tourism."

Source - VN Express

Vietnam offers cut-price paradise to lure local travelers post coronavirus

In Phu Quoc, a Vietnamese island off the coast of Cambodia, posters warning tourists of the dangers of COVID-19 have long since faded in the powerful sunshine, along with the throngs of international travelers that used to dot its beaches.

Vietnam recorded a 98 percent fall in visitors this April compared to 2019 because of the coronavirus pandemic, but its success in fighting the virus, posting only 324 cases and no deaths, now sees it set to breathe life back into its tourism industry.

Vietnam will be one of the first Southeast Asian nations to start to revive its economy, but with a ban still in place on foreign visitors, and many of their major tourist markets under lockdown, hotels and resorts are discounting paradise to make it more attractive to local travelers.

At the Mango Bay resort in Phu Quoc, staff in surgical masks served icy cocktails and chilled glasses of white wine to small groups of guests, many of them young urban tourists, from Hanoi or from Ho Chi Minh City.

General manager Ronan Le Bihan said the resort now needed to adapt to local tastes.

"Tourist businesses targeting foreign tourists will be in trouble for a long time," said Bihan. "We can now focus on the Vietnamese market. But that is a very large term. And not all Vietnamese are interested in what we offer."

A tourism promotion campaign "Vietnamese People Travel in Vietnam" debuted last week and aims to "introduce quality tourism products and service packages at reasonable prices".

The move puts Vietnam ahead of its regional tourism competitors such as Thailand, Indonesia and the Philippines, where travel restrictions are only just starting to lift.

Tourism raised 726 trillion dong ($31 billion) last year, nearly 12 percent of Vietnam's 2019 GDP, but while barely 17% of the 103 million travelers were foreigners, they spent slightly more than domestic counterparts.

Warning of the risk of reopening to foreigners too quickly, Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc has called for the promotion of domestic tourism.

To lure local travelers, hotels and airlines have cut prices by as much as half, Vu The Binh, chairman of Vietnam Society of Travel Agents, and vice chairman of the Vietnam Tourism Association, told Reuters.

"The recovery of domestic tourism should boost international tourism," he said. "After this program ends in mid-July, we will embark on another program to promote international tourism, depending on the virus situation."

'Travel bubble'

Domestic tourism is on the post-lockdown agenda elsewhere in Southeast Asia, but tight travel restrictions mean its uncertain when it will resume. Indonesia's holiday island of Bali has said it could reopen to foreign tourists in October, and hotels in Thailand are gearing up for an eventual reopening.

One option being considered in Vietnam is to join a "travel bubble" with other countries that have successfully fought back the coronavirus.

Ken Atkinson, vice chairman of the Vietnam Tourism Advisory Board, said the first countries to target could be Australia and New Zealand, which are considering their own free-movement zone.

"However, as China and Korea are our two biggest inbound source markets it is important to have plans in place to reopen travel from those markets as soon as it is safe," he told Reuters.

Asian markets were likely to be the first to recover, said William Haandrikman, general manager of the Sofitel Legend Metropole Hanoi, an iconic, colonial-era hotel whose crowds of wealthy Western tourists are long gone.

"We have had to re-invent ourselves to focus directly on the local domestic market as well as regional Asian markets," he said. That includes room deals with $100 credits for food.

Domestic tourism is now on the rise, with most Vietnamese airlines reporting their limited domestic flights are fast reaching capacity.

Lured by low prices, Le Thi Mai Phuong, a 38-year-old businesswoman from Hanoi, spent last weekend in the central city of Danang.

"I'm afraid that if we wait until the virus is over, the cost will go up and the beaches will become too crowded," she said. "We don't know if the virus will return to Vietnam and cause another lockdown".

"I'd have to stay at home and dream about travelling again." 

Source - TheJakartaPost