Recently, Da Nang has seen an increasing appearance of so-called zero-dong tours, raising concerns amongstrelevant local agencies about ensuring a fair and healthy competitive business environment amongsttravel agencies and reducing tax evasion for the tourism sector.

Visitors at the Marble Mountains

These tours are very attractive to visitors from foreign countries, mainly those from China and South Korea. The visitors only pay Da Nang-based operators low prices for their package tours in the city. However, when arriving in Da Nang, they are taken to shopping malls and gift shops where they will be persuaded to buy items at inflatued prices instead of visiting popular tourist attractions and enjoying high-end accommodation.

The local travel agencies and tour guides will receive commissions from the shops in a bid to keep running the tours. Worse still, the shops are mainly Chinese-owned and will almost always take cash exclusively. The whole business activity revolving around the ‘zero-dong’ tours leaves little room for local travel firms, while the city’s tourism sector suffers tax collection losses.

According to a spokesperson for the municipal Department of Tourism, the growing appearance of so-called zero-dong tours has resulted in the unfair competitive environment between travel businesses, the low quality of tourism services, the uncontrolled extensive operation of unlicensed foreign tour guideswho spread distorted information about the truth of Viet Nam’s history and its culture, and the tax evasionby some shops.

In addition, the cooperation between the Da Nang Tourism and the city’s travel associations, and local travel agencies who specialise in exploiting Chinese and Korean visitors, is still modest.

The cooperation amongst departments and agencies in managing foreigners in the city is not close. As a result, many foreigners living in the city have yet to strictly declare their temporary residence.

Also, some shops are selling low-quality items with unclear sources of origin at overcharged prices, as well as implementing illegal transactions in foreign currencies in the city.

Moreover, district-level authorities have faced difficulties in managing foreigners in their localities due to a lack of employees who can speak foreign languages, especially Chinese and Korean, fluently.

Mr Doan Hai Dang, the Director of the city’s branch of Vietravel, stressed the need for relevant agencies to impose stricter penalties on any Vietnamese travel agencies, hotels, and tour guides for colluding with the city-based foreign tourism companies to carry out illegal tourism activities, as well as tighten the monitoring of shopping centres and souvenir shops in order to prevent tax evasion.

General Director of the Minh Toan Trading and Service Company Nguyen Huu Thanh underlined the necessity for the municipal Department of Tax to apply information technology in their tax management work.

Last year, an inspection team from the municipal Department of Tourism imposed administrative fines totalling 167 million VND on 2 shops for illegal foreign currencies transactions, employing illegal foreigners, and refusing to issue receipts or commercial invoices.

The Department of Tax made a list of 140 restaurants, 57 hotels and some travel agencies which faced high risks of tax evasion. A total of over 3.4 billion VND in overdue tax arrears was collected from 37 out of 43 tourism and service businesses across the city.

Municipal Tourism Department Deputy Director Nguyen Xuan Binh highlighted that his unit was increasing their checks over so-called zero-dong tours, as well as proposing some solutions about enhancing their management capacity and ensuring a fair tourism environment.

Focus would be on developing high-quality tourism products, and exploiting middle-class and high-endtourists. Heed would be paid to expanding the city's key foreign tourist markets, including Australia, India, Russia, and Northeast Asian and Western European countries.

Notably, the city’s representative offices will be establish at Japan, China and some European countries, whilst greater efforts will be made to facilitate the operation of a representative office of South Korea’s Tourism Department in the city in the coming time.