Official: Vietnam to scrap visas for five European countries in July

Why just 15 days. ?
If they want to boost tourism why not 30 days like neighbouring countries .  Given that it's a cheap destination , a lot of people would see that as an opportunity to have a good look around the place.

Better to have them spending money for up to 30 days you'd think.

Considering a lot of long haul flights arrive in the evenings and depart early , there's 2 days gone already.   I suppose their looking at the Russian business model where they only really visit one location.   And that location (Nha Trang) has development projects in place everywhere and the place resembles a construction site.  You've got cement trucks, scaffolding, piles of sand, noise, jackhammers etc going all day and into the night.  People are tired of it and won't come back.

The return tourist rate is pitiful, only 5% and getting lower. And most of that 5% is made up from expats living here doing their periodic trips out & in.

Give them an opportunity to do a top to bottom tour of the country.  When the arrival/ departure days are taken out, they really only have 13 days .   

There's over 3000 kms of coastline, Halong Bay, Sapa, the massive cave system, Hoi An, Central highlands, Dalat, Nha Trang, Mui Ne, the Mekong etc etc . There's a lot to see .   I just hope they are not going with the single destination plan they already have.   

I wonder if they're hoping the new arrivals will pay for vIsa extensions to extend their stay.

Yogi007 wrote:

Why just 15 days. ?
If they want to boost tourism why not 30 days like neighbouring countries .  Given that it's a cheap destination , a lot of people would see that as an opportunity to have a good look around the place.

Better to have them spending money for up to 30 days you'd think.

Considering a lot of long haul flights arrive in the evenings and depart early , there's 2 days gone already.   I suppose their looking at the Russian business model where they only really visit one location.   And that location (Nha Trang) has development projects in place everywhere and the place resembles a construction site.  You've got cement trucks, scaffolding, piles of sand, noise, jackhammers etc going all day and into the night.  People are tired of it and won't come back.

The return tourist rate is pitiful, only 5% and getting lower. And most of that 5% is made up from expats living here doing their periodic trips out & in.

Give them an opportunity to do a top to bottom tour of the country.  When the arrival/ departure days are taken out, they really only have 13 days .   

There's over 3000 kms of coastline, Halong Bay, Sapa, the massive cave system, Hoi An, Central highlands, Dalat, Nha Trang, Mui Ne, the Mekong etc etc . There's a lot to see .   I just hope they are not going with the single destination plan they already have.   

I wonder if they're hoping the new arrivals will pay for vIsa extensions to extend their stay.

Maybe they don't want 15 day English teachers?

Yogi007 wrote:

If they want to boost tourism why not 30 days like neighbouring countries .

That's exactly my thought, especially since those days of the old school viet stasi are long gone where they need to know who's coming and where they'll be staying at, why keep this special treatment with all the hassles to get that (stupid) visa up? It is just not competitive in this AO!

But I guess they prefer to learn it the hard way, or not at all.