New door opens for travel sector

      For the first time, tourist joint-venture enterprises will be allowed to host outbound tours for their customers, previously the sole domain of only Vietnamese companies.
The move is part of a stimulus policy by the Government to help overcome the effects of the world financial crisis.
Under the initiative, which got the go ahead from Deputy Prime Minister Nguyen Sinh Hung recently, travel joint-venture businesses will be permitted to run outbound tours for Vietnamese or overseas Vietnamese and foreigners working and living in Viet Nam.
The policy will also allow a few four-star hotels to offer entertainment until 2am in stead of 12pm as usual on a trial basis from now until 2010.
The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism will select a list of hotels for such trial. It will work with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Public Security to manage the implementation of the policy to prevent any violations.
Referring to requests for reductions or exemptions on tax, power and telecommunications bills for hotels, Hung urged ministries and agencies to continue to follow existing regulations.
The reductions were sought to help travel enterprises hardest hit in the tourism sector - and to create a level playing field between domestic and joint-venture businesses.
"We always hoped for a chance to include outbound tours in our business as joint ventures have the advantage of foreign partners and a tourism network abroad," said Nguyen Van Tran, director general of APEX Viet Nam, a Vietnamese-Japanese joint-venture company.
"As soon as we get guidelines from ministries and agencies, we will start organising outbound tours - hopefully this year," he said.
A representative from a Vietnamese-French joint-venture company in HCM City said companies like his would now enjoy more market share.
He said his company lost 30-40 per cent of trade because of the downturn in tourism caused by the global economic crisis.
"However, joint-venture enterprises face competition from local businesses already involved in outbound tours," he said.
"Our company needs time to organise outbound tours, which they have never done before," he said.
Fewer visitors
During the past six months, the number of foreign tourists to Viet Nam dropped by 19.1 per cent to 1.9 million over the corresponding period last year, according to the General Statistics Office.
Minister of Culture, Sports and Tourism, Hoang Tuan Anh attributed the drop to the global economic crisis and the outbreak of A/ H1N1 flu.
Travel Department Director Vu The Binh said the Viet Nam Administration of Tourism had taken many measures to help local companies recover. This included organising tourist promotion programmes to attract more visitors.
"In particular, the ministry launched the first phase of the Impression Viet Nam Programme early this year and it has yielded positive results. Domestic tourists have risen by 10-12 per cent and the total turnover of the sector increased by 3-5 per cent," he said.
As part of the initiative, the ministry had offered businesses a 50 per cent reduction in value-added tax and visa exemptions for foreign tourists involved, he said.