An airport employee checks the temperature of visitors at Cam Ranh International Airport in Khanh Hoa Province.

This suggestion was made during a webinar to promote cooperation between Khanh Hoa Province and Saint Petersburg on Wednesday.

Khanh Hoa Province drew a large number of Russian tourists before the pandemic. In 2019, Russian tourists visiting the locality hit a record of more than 460,000, up 4.5 per cent over 2018 and accounting for 71 per cent of the total Russian visitors to Viet Nam.

In the first quarter of 2020, before Viet Nam stopped receiving foreign tourists, visitors from Russia reached 245,000, an increase of 14 per cent over 2019’s same period.

Nguyen Thi Le Thanh, deputy director of Khanh Hoa Tourism Department said, “The pandemic has been gradually controlled. The Department of Tourism will submit a plan to welcome international visitors with a "vaccine passport" in November to the provincial People's Committee for submission to the Prime Minister.”

“Thus, the province’s tourism industry has proposed two-way direct flights from Saint Petersburg to Khanh Hoa, to facilitate travel and tourism promotion programme.”

In response, Saint Petersburg’s authority said the cooperation between two cities has potential and called for an online meeting in December 2021. Early next year, the Russian city will hold a tourism seminar, with the participation of Vietnamese tourism companies.

According to a representative of Nhat Minh Travel JSC, the province has controlled the pandemic rather well and the tourism industry, including the province's airport, are fully prepared for the new normal conditions. They are waiting for government permission to welcome Russian tourists again, expected in December this year.

If approved, the province will resume transit flights four times a week, from Saint Petersburg to Novosibirsk and from Novosibirsk to Cam Ranh.

Viet Nam is expected to open its doors to foreign tourists from November. Those with a “vaccine passport” will be able to visit the resort island of Phu Quoc in November. After that, Viet Nam will consider expanding this programme to other places such as Khanh Hoa and Da Nang.

Source: VNS