After 2 months of opening, travel agencies are still at the “starting” line.

On March 15, the Government agreed to a plan for the tourism industry to live with the pandemic and reopen, in order to support the tourism industry to recover after more than 2 years of severe damage due to the impacts of the pandemic. Covid-19. Before that information, quite a few travel companies are happy and excited when they are back to work.

However, after 2 months, many companies “cry to heaven” because the number of foreign visitors is quite small and there are many new regulations that cause difficulties.

Exchange with Reporter Dan VietMr. Nguyen Hong Phuong, director of Custom Asia Travel Company, said that because the company has just reopened, there are not many tours for foreign tourists. Moreover, currently foreign tourists are planning year-end trips instead of the next 1-2 months.

“Along with that is the nature of guests in European countries, they will have plans to travel 6 months or even a year in advance. Currently, Vietnam has only been open for 2 months, so the number of tourists traveling only sporadically,” said Mr. Phuong.

Another reason given by Mr. Phuong is that Vietnam Customs still has some new regulations, causing difficulties for tourists as well as domestic travel companies. For example: The visa fee is higher than the previous one, some countries can’t get a visa but only limited to 8 countries, the time to enter Vietnam is limited to only 15 days…

For more than 2 years affected by the Covid epidemic, Mr. Phuong’s company had a period of time in the first 6 months of 2020 to switch to domestic tours. However, the nature of domestic and foreign customers is different, so Mr. Phuong’s company had to close. Employees also move to other occupations to earn a living.

Up to now, the company has reopened, but only 20% of employees have returned to the company, because many employees have found more stable jobs.

“Currently the company is short of quite a lot of human resources, however, looking at the reality, the tourism industry will take at least a little longer to recover to its original state. At that time, we recruited human resources is also easier,” said Mr. Phuong.

Meanwhile, also sharing with PV about the number of international visitors to Vietnam, Mr. Le Nguyen Long, director of Tam Nguyen Travel Hanoi Company, said that tourists entering Vietnam at this time are still very limited, despite being SEA GAMES 31. Because of the decision to open from March 15, but the regulations, procedures at the airport, immigration procedures (Covid test, medical declaration, …) are still unclear, so guests Tourism has not yet received much enthusiasm.

“Up to now, there has only been a new announcement to remove those regulations. Well, this May is the end of the tourist season for foreign visitors to Vietnam,” said Mr. Long.

Mr. Long also added that, normally, the tourist season of foreign tourists starts from October last year to May next year. Therefore, businesses that welcome foreign guests at this time are just “breaking the ice” ie preparing mentally and informing guests of information.

“Another difficulty is the restriction of visas (the fees are high, some countries are not allowed to apply for a visa to Vietnam, …)” Mr. Long said.

Besides, according to PV’s research, a number of travel agencies specializing in receiving international visitors are also looking forward, expecting that after 2 months of tourism opening, tourists will book tours, book tickets to visit Vietnam. . Most travel companies also hope that with the current epidemic under control, the number of international tourists entering Vietnam will increase in the coming time.