Earlier this month, Beijing launched a pilot program allowing domestic travel agencies to sell group tours to 20 countries and territories, including seven in Southeast Asia. But Vietnam, which fully opened its borders on March 15, 2022, was not included in the list.
This decision affects the operational plan of Vietnam’s airlines, four of which, including Vietnam Airlines, Jetstar Pacific Airlines and Vietjet Air, operate 72 routes from five bases to 48 destinations in China, one of the key source markets for the Indochinese country.
Before the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, the agency itself recalled, quoted by the VNA news agency, 11 Chinese airlines flew 32 routes from 14 locations in that country to five destinations in Vietnam. In 2019 alone, passenger traffic between the two countries was around eight million, of which Vietnamese airlines carried more than 4.6 million travelers, accounting for more than 60 percent market share.
On February 16, Vietnam’s Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism urged its Chinese counterpart to add it to the list of countries where group travel is already allowed.
Before the pandemic, China was the largest source market for tourists to Vietnam, which in turn was among the top five sources of travelers to the neighboring country, said the head of the ministry’s international cooperation department, Nguyen Phuong Hoa.
Tourism cooperation between the two countries is a bright spot in bilateral cooperation, said the ministerial document sent to China, from which around 5.5 million visitors traveled in 2019, accounting for 30 percent of the total arrivals of foreigners in the country year corresponds.
In 2022, Vietnam received just 3.6 million international travelers, mostly South Koreans and Americans. For this year, the aim is to increase this number to eight million foreigners received.
jcm/mpm