VietNamNet Bridge – Many countries and territories have made visa procedures more stringent for Vietnamese visitors after several local travelers have been found taking advantage of touring overseas to flee and illegally reside there, heard a meeting between the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism and about 40 tour operators in HCMC recently.

At the meeting, Tran Doan The Duy, deputy general director of Vietravel, informed that applying for visas for local visitors taking tours to Taiwan, South Korea, Europe, Hong Kong and Macau is increasingly difficult as multiple tour buyers have fled from the tours to hide in such destinations. Even with Israel, it is very difficult or even impossible for local visitors of working age to get tourism visas to the country, Duy remarked.

“Visa procedures to Israel should have been made more open but the situation is contrary as many local visitors have run away when going there,” Duy said.

The Vietnam National Administration of Tourism (VNAT) some days ago asked travel agencies to check information of Israel tour buyers thoroughly as many package tour buyers have sought ways to fled and hide in Israel. In particular, the authority requested local firms to pay more attention to information of customers in such localities as Nghe An, Ha Tinh and Hai Duong as a large number of runway visitors are from those provinces.

Nguyen Van Tuan, head of VNAT, told the meeting that in fact, not only Israel tour buyers but also visitors buying tours to Taiwan, South Korea and Japan have also run away. It is noted that certain tour operators are already aware of such suspicious visitors but they have still ignored or concluded with them, Tuan said, adding that his authority has given warnings to some corporate violators besides punishing others strictly.

The tourism industry has already issued a new regulation on granting licenses to tour operators, according to Tuan. He informed his authority in the future will re-issue the licenses to local enterprises to clearly differentiate inbound, outbound and domestic tour providers, with the deposit of every outbound service supplier set at VND500 million, doubling that of each in the inbound segment.

Source: SGT