Hanoi (VNA)﷽ - Vietnam is now one of the nearly 50 countries around the world that have fully opened their doors to foreign tourists with no COVID-19-related restrictions.

Speaking at the World Tourism Industry Conference 2022 co-hosted by the World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO) and the Global Tourism Forum in the Republic of Korea recently, Deputy Director General Ha Van Sieu of the Vietnam National Administration of Tourism (VNAT) said at this time, tourism policies have been restored to almost pre-pandemic period, with no quarantine, COVID-19 testing and vaccination, and medical declaration before entry. Thanks to such open policies, the number of international tourists to Vietnam after its re-opening has grown rapidly. In the first six months of 2022, the figure reached 602,000, 6.8 times higher than the same period last year. Tourism revenue saw a year-on-year increase of 94.4% thanks to the strong recovery of the activities in the field, especially the boom of domestic tourism in the second quarter of this year. Sieu said that in the post-pandemic period, Vietnam will focus on promoting safe, green, resort, healthcare and community tourism following the theme “Green Tourist Destination” of the National Tourism Year 2022. Reviving quickly after the pandemic, Vietnamese tourism businesses are focusing on restructuring and making new investments to best meet market demand. Some big firms in Vietnam have quickly seized the opportunity to recover with strong plans and strategies to accelerate the development of the domestic tourism market. For example, Sun Group has launched many new tourism products that make Ba Na Hills worthy of being a leading theme park in Asia. They include Time Gate - a combination of music, water and fog; Moon Castle which features European architecture; Sun God Waterfall - a masterpiece with more than 40 exquisite statues themed in Greek Mythology; two "airship" cinemas using virtual reality technology that open a journey to explore the spectacular fantasy world. This group also boldly invested in the trillion-dong Asia Park located in the heart of the central city. From 2023 to 2025, Sun World Ba Na Hills will implement ecological, environmentally friendly projects. After 25 years of pioneering in the fields of tourism, aviation, yacht and hotel, HG Holdings now owns many famous travel brands such as HG Travel, Bhaya luxury yacht and Lang Co resort, etc. A representative of HG Holdings said that the group will continue to focus on developing tourism products with many experience values, towards health care and treatment, such as Yoga Cruise Halong and Wellness Resort Hoi An, which are already underway. Currently, HG Holdings is implementing a resort and yacht tourism project in Hoi An - one of the leading tourist destinations in Vietnam and many times named in the list of Asia's top destinations. The project is expected to be put into operation in the second quarter of 2023. Chairman of HG Holdings Tran Thanh Nam said that, based on projects built in harmony with nature, Lunimary Wellness - one of Vietnam's leading companies in terms of healthcare tourism - will partner with HG Holdings to develop soft products and manage the entire operation process that takes customer's mental health as the focus. This will take a pioneering role in designing specialised programmes for tourists who want to experience unique and useful health care-tourism models. In the first quarter of this year, the number of foreign tourists to Vietnam reached nearly 91,000, a year-on-year rise of 89.1%. Among them, visitors arriving by air accounted for nearly 90.5% of the total international arrivals to Vietnam, an increase of 165.2%. The tourism sector aims to welcome 5 million foreign visitors and 60 million domestic tourists this year, with a revenue of about 400 trillion VND (17.5 billion USD)./.