Socialist Republic of Vietnam

Vietnam’s tourism law should encourage private investments, facilitate the establishment of national tourism strategies and policies, and be enforced by a tourism police force, experts suggested Oct 25.

The international tourism experts from the International Tourism Organization (ITO) and the Dutch Development Organization (DDO) gave their opinions in a seminar hosted by the Vietnamese National Tourism Administration (VNTA) in Hanoi to discuss elements of Vietnam’s tourism law.

The law on tourism needs to encourage investment into the industry, especially from private entrepreneurs, said John J. Downes, an ITO expert.

“If tourism is seen as a spear-head economic industry then investment from the private sector is needed,” Mr. Downes said. “The tourism law should not set up unnecessary barriers to private and individual businesses.”

He added that currently there are too many government inspection agencies which lead to overlapping inspections of travel companies, and the law needs to solve this problem.

Within the framework of the law, experts said VNTA needs to formulate national policies on tourism and conduct national campaigns to promote Vietnam as an attractive tourist destination. These programs should be expanded by promotions by tour operators and Vietnamese airlines.

Furthermore, each province must carry out VNTA strategies, facilitate tourism firm operations and promote the country’s cultural and natural heritage, experts added.

Another important task is to train tour guides, specialists said. The tour guides must be divided into three levels, including national guides managed by the VNTA, provincial guides managed by provincial People’s Committees, and guides at each heritage site managed by the Ministry of Culture and Information, they suggested

To enforce the law, Vietnam should set up a tourism police force, recommended Tony Charters, executive director of Policy, Planning and Development of Tourism in Queensland, Australia.

Such a force needs not be armed or perform all police duties, they only need to investigate and penalize any misconduct in the tourism sector, Mr. Charters said.

The law must prevent tour operation fraud as well as ensuring fairness to tourists, tour operators and travel firms, he said.

It’s high time that Vietnam had a tourism law, experts concluded, and its major objective now is to create a legal framework to speed up and support the development of the tourism sector.

Reported by Xuan Toan – Translated by Hieu Trung
Story from Thanh Nien News
Published: 27 October, 2004, 19:50:22 (GMT+7)
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