Vietnam Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh has instructed his cabinet to relax certain visa requirements in a bid to attract more foreign tourists to the country.
According to a report by Bloomberg, Chinh wants to offer visa waivers to more countries, expand Vietnam’s e-Visa program and allow foreigners to stay for longer as the Southeast Asian nation targets 8 million visitor arrivals in 2023.
While that number still lags the 18 million who arrived in 2019, it would represent more than double the 3.44 million visitor arrivals in 2022. Local media have blamed the slow tourism recovery on difficulties foreigners experience in obtaining visas.
Vietnam earlier this month resumed visa exemptions for visitors from 13 countries – Belarus, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Norway, Russia, South Korea, Spain, Sweden and the UK – for up to 15 days, while visitors from nine ASEAN countries can stay for up to 30 days.
Bloomberg is reporting that some tourism officials want to extend the maximum length of stay to 45 days.
