A Vietnamese official welcomed being included on the 40-nation list from Wednesday (March 15) to receive China’s outbound tourism group business, a trade that has been suspended for about three years worldwide amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
China’s Ministry of Culture and Tourism released a list approved by 40 countries on Friday.
China’s China Daily reported that Feng Shih-tuan, a cultural counselor at the Chinese Embassy in Vietnam, met with Nguyen Feng Hoa, head of the Ministry of International Cooperation under Vietnam’s Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, and said the two countries had enjoyed strong tourism cooperation since before the COVID-19 pandemic. 경마사이트
Mrs Hoa was quoted as welcoming China’s contribution to bilateral tourism cooperation.
Separately, Vietnam’s news agency reported in an article released on Monday that China was Vietnam’s largest individual source market for tourists before the pandemic.
In 2019, Vietnam welcomed 5.8 million Chinese visitors, accounting for nearly 30% of foreign tourists. According to the news outlet, 4.5 million Vietnamese traveled to China that year in the opposite direction.
There is a casino industry in Vietnam, and all but one place is open to foreigners. In the fall, Vietnam and China agreed to promote bilateral cooperation on “cross-border gambling” among several law enforcement topics.
Earlier, China placed a total of 20 countries on its outbound travel group approval list from Feb. 6. These included Asia-Pacific countries with casino industries such as Cambodia, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Singapore.
Last November, Cambodia and China agreed to strengthen cooperation, including efforts to crack down on online gambling and telecommunications fraud.
So far, Korea, a popular destination for Chinese tourists before the pandemic, has not been designated by China as a target of approval for the resumption of group tours. South Korean authorities have called for COVID-19 tests on visitors arriving from mainland China, Hong Kong and Macau after China eased its COVID-19 response measures in early January. These demands were lifted on March 11.