The Ministry of Culture, Sports, and Tourism of Vietnam has just proposed a plan to officially open to international visitors from March 31 while the Southeast Asian country is carrying out a “speedy vaccination campaign” against COVID-19 which was launched just before the Lunar New Year holiday.
After nearly two years of border closures due to the pandemic, Vietnam began allowing international commercial routes to nine countries to resume from January and licensed a number of foreign airlines this month to carry out international flights. Currently, there are flights to repatriate Vietnamese people from places that have not yet been restored to commercial routes to Vietnam amid the high demand for Vietnamese returning home during Tet.
The Ministry of Culture, Sports, and Tourism proposed to fully open to tourists from the end of March on the grounds that this is the time when Vietnam will complete the vaccination campaign “Spring 2022” and have herd immunity, according to the local media.
This rapid vaccination campaign started on January 29, the first day of the Lunar New Year holiday, across the country as launched by PM Pham Minh Chinh.
The Government Electronic Newspaper said that according to Mr. Chinh’s launch, the health sector will work through Tet until the end of March, with the spirit of “going every alley, knocking door-to-door, checking each person” to fulfill the goal of vaccination.
Vietnam, from a country with the lowest vaccination rate in the region, is now in the group of 6 countries with the highest proportion of people fully vaccinated against COVID-19 in the world.
Currently, Vietnamese people are receiving the third dose of vaccine with an abundant amount of vaccine from the global vaccine support program COVAX and from donations from other countries, especially the US and Europe, after vaccine diplomatic trips of Communist Party leaders.
According to the Government Electronic Newspaper, Vietnam has now received about 212 million doses of COVID vaccine, more than 24 million doses from the US alone.
The goal of the “flash campaign” is to complete the third injection in the first three months of this year.
Another reason given by the Director-General of the National Administration of Tourism Nguyen Trung Khanh about the time of March 31 for Vietnam to fully open is to give tourism businesses time to prepare and work with foreign partners, according to Tin Tuc of VNA.
Vietnam has piloted welcoming international visitors, in closed tours with travel restrictions, from November 2021 to January 2022.
During that time, according to the head of communications of the Vietnam Travel Association, Nguyen Cong Hoan, told the News, Vietnam received 8,500 international visitors only, a smaller number than expected. Tourism businesses believe that it is because the announcement of the pick-up time is too close, leaving them with no time to work with partners and promote with customers.
According to the report of the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism to the Prime Minister on the “Proposal to reopen” from March 31, in addition to completely opening international tourism activities to Vietnam, bringing foreign tourists through all International border gates will also be restored.
The ministry said that if the implementation is slower than the above proposed time, Vietnam’s tourism will be reduced in attractiveness and cannot attract international visitors in the context that many countries in the region are also preparing to issue plans for no international tourism.
Thoibao.de (Translated)
Source: https://www.voatiengviet.com/a/viet-nam-co-the-mua-cua-hoan-toan-vao-thang-3/6426793.html
