Vietnam extends visa waiver for five European countries until 2017

Vietnam has decided to extend a visa waiver program benefiting citizens of five European countries, which ended on Thursday, as the policy has proved to be successful after one year in effect.

German, French, British, Italian, and Spanish visitors will continue to travel to Vietnam without enquiring a visa. This visa-free travel policy allows for travellers a 15-day stay for each entry for a year ending July 30, 2017, according to a directive signed Thursday by Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc. The official decision can be view the link here:Visa Exemption

The previous visa waiver, valid from July 1, 2015 to June 30, 2016, did increase arrivals from those five countries by 15 percent to 681,000 after 11 months in effect, according to the Vietnam National Administration of Tourism (VNAT).

In the first five months of this year, tourist arrivals from the five countries topped 342,000, a 20.10 percent from the same period last year.

The Vietnamese government has agreed an extension for the program, but rejected a proposal to increase the validity and allowed stays for the policy.

In May, the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism and the VNAT urged the government to waive visas for the same five countries for the next five years from the new policy’s effective date, with an allowed 30-day stay for each entry with promoting Vietnam to EU market in next periods.

Vietnam’s international arrivals topped 4.7 million in the first half of this year, up 21.3 percent year on year.

In the six-month period, Italy posted the biggest increase in tourist numbers, 30 percent, followed by the UK and Spain, 24.6 percent and 22.7 percent, respectively. Vietnam saw a 17.1 percent and 13.8 percent increase of arrivals from Germany and France.

Together with this, Vietnam has also waived visa for single-entry visits of up to 15 days for Danish, Finnish, Japanese, Norwegian, Russian, South Korean, Belarusian, and Swedish nationals starting this year until 2019.

This is a good news for Tourism of Vietnam and with this news, Vietnam hopes to call more tourists from Europe as the tourism has taken a hit as arrivals dropped by nearly 13 percent in the first five months of 2015.