More foreign travel firms to work in HCMC

Ho Chi Minh City has granted three new foreign tour operators from the U.S., the U.K. and Singapore, licenses to open representative offices in the city.
The three companies are: U.S.-based Grand Circle Corporation, U.K.’s Westeast Travel and Singapore’s Griffin Travel Pte. Ltd.
“We are happy to receive the license and will move our office from Hanoi to HCMC,” Ngo Van Manh Cuong, regional general director of Grand Circle, which specializes in travel for the elderly, told The Saigon Times Daily at the license awarding ceremony on Tuesday.
“Our office in Hanoi was opened in 2003,” he said. “We have brought tens of thousands of American tourists to Vietnam so far.”
Nguyen Viet Anh, head of the travel division under the city’s Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism, said six other foreign travel firms had submitted their applications to open representative offices in HCMC.
“We are working on the applications and expect to hand out the licenses to the companies soon,” he said.
More than 20 representative offices of foreign travel companies are working in HCMC at present.
The southern hub, one of Vietnam’s major tourist destinations, welcomed 1.34 million foreign visitors in the first seven months of this year, down 10 percent year-on-year, Vietnam News Agency reported.