Vietnam remains safe destination to every visitor
Radio Voice of Vietnam, February 9, 2004
"We confirm that Vietnam remains a safe destination to every visitor and we encourage travel agents to continue arranging tours to Vietnam," said Pham Tu, Deputy General Director of the Vietnam National Administration of Tourism.
Tu said that although some groups of foreign travellers have cancelled their Vietnam tours, others are starting to book new tours. The number of tourist arrivals to Vietnam reportedly increased 17 percent year-on-year in January.
Regarding the ASEAN Tourism Forum in Laos last week, Tu said its dominant topic centred on visa exemption for tourists from the ASEAN region. Vietnam is exempting visiting Thai, Filipino, Singaporean, Malaysian and Indonesian travellers from visas and the administration is asking the government to extend visa exemption to travellers from the remaining countries of ASEAN. Last year, ASEAN travellers going on inner-region tours numbered 17 million, of whom 300,000 visited Vietnam.
