Golden Bridge, a famous tourist attraction in Da Nang city

Hanoi (VNA) – With good performance in the COVID-19 combat, central Da Nang city and its neighbouring province of Quang Nam are seeking permission to welcome international tourists back.

Lao dong (Labour) newspaper cited Chairman of the Da Nang People’s Committee Le Trung Chinh as saying that the city has managed to put the latest coronavirus outbreak under control and currently ranks eighth among the 63 provinces and cities in terms of the vaccine coverage, with 95 percent of its population aged 18 and above already getting the first dose and 15 percent, the second.

In particular, the city has experience in concurrently receiving people from abroad and ensuring pandemic prevention and control, he noted.

Da Nang is a tourism hub of the entire central and Central Highlands regions, but its tourism industry has been hit hard by the pandemic for the past almost two years. While 90 percent of travel companies have had to shut down temporarily, 80 percent or 42,000 people directly working in this sector, and hundreds of thousands of indirect workers have become idle. The tourism and service sectors, accounting for 64.3 percent of the local economy, have shrunk continually.

Given this, the municipal People’s Committee has proposed the Prime Minister permit the city welcome foreign visitors back from November.

It expects this move will help Da Nang gradually recover tourism and achieve the “twin targets” of fighting COVID-19 and boosting socio-economic development. Tourism recovery is also hoped to fuel other sectors like transport, industry, trade, construction, and real estate while keeping the city attractive to travellers when other destinations around the world are also reopening.

Local authorities asked for permission to serve foreign visitors in package tours or tour combos and hoped to receive 15,000 - 20,000 arrivals per month.

Hoi An ancient city in central Quang Nam province is an attractive tourist destination.

Like Da Nang, Quang Nam province has also submitted a similar proposal to the PM.

It has received about 15,000 Vietnamese citizens returning home from abroad since the start of this year. Local accommodation facilities and travel and transport companies have done a good job in serving returnees and ensuring pandemic prevention and control.

This reflects the province’s readiness to welcome international travellers in the time ahead, according to Lao dong.

To ensure effectiveness of tourism reopening, Nguyen Xuan Ha from Gami Theme Park Management JSC recommended authorities issue consistent regulations on transport and travel among localities and step up vaccinations for tourism workers.

He also suggested priority be given to international visitors with vaccination certificates, especially those from Southeast Asian countries.

Phan Xuan Thanh, Chairman of the Quang Nam Tourism Association, said businesses are ready to take actions as soon as the administration gives the green light, but authorities should work to lower interest rates of bank loans and create new capital sources for enterprises to soon reactivate their operations./.