The War Remnants Museum is expected to offer free entrance from August until the end of this year. — File photo courtesy of the museum

The loans will help tourism companies pay at least 50 per cent of their employees' salaries for three months. The loans are expected to cover about 31,500 employees working in 5,002 tourism businesses in the city.

The city-funded loan package will be handled by the Vietnam Bank for Social Policies (VBSP) – HCM City branch.

Vietravel chairman Nguyen Quoc Ky told Tuổi Trẻ (Youth) newspaper that tourism businesses were currently making very little or no profit.

He estimated that tens of thousands of tourism employees have lost or quit their jobs due to the serious impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. For example, Vietravel had nearly 1,500 employees, but now has only 50 people to maintain the company’s operation.

Apart from the loan package, the department has proposed that the People’s Committee support training expenses for tourism personnel this year. The training expense of VND1.2 billion ($52,295) includes VND1 billion from the city budget and VND200 million from other sources.

The money will be used for 20 training courses for tour guides, and managers and staff working for tourism-service providers, food and beverage businesses, and hotels.

The department also suggested free entrance fees at the city’s main attractions from August until the end of 2021. The attractions include the War Remnants Museum, the Vietnam History Museum in HCM City, the HCM City Museum, the HCM City Fine Arts Museum, and the Cu Chi Tunnels Relic Site.

In order to offset losses in ticket sales, the city was also asked to provide VND21 billion ($915,168) to pay for salaries and expenses at these five attractions.

According to the Tourism Department, the total number of domestic travelers to the city in the first five months of this year was 7.1 million, up 11.4 per cent year on year. The city, however, has had no international tourists this year because of COVID-related travel restrictions.

Total tourism revenue during the period was estimated at VND35.58 trillion (US$1.55 billion), an increase of 23.3 per cent compared to the same period in 2020.

The number of tourism businesses operating in the city dropped by 50 per cent in the first five months, while 171 businesses had their licenses revoked.

Source: Vietnam News

Small tourism businesses struggle to adapt to COVID-19

The fourth wave of COVID-19 infections in Vietnam has caused disruptions to most sectors once again as the country was preparing for the tourism season.

Tourism businesses need to become flexible post-pandemic

Tourism businesses should be flexible to foster domestic travel amid the Covid-19 pandemic, experts have said.