The Da Nang authorities have been making great efforts to stop illegal operation of foreign travel agencies in the city, and to tackle so-called ‘zero-dong’ tours that adversely affect the revenue of the local tourism sector.

A foreign visitor shopping at the Han Market

Commenting about the zero-dong tour boom, some tourism service providers said this is a form of competition in price amongst travel agencies, mostly applied to the Chinese and South Korean visitors arriving in the city.

Tour bookers 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 inflated prices instead of visiting popular attractions and enjoying high-end accommodation.

Chairman of the municipal Travel Association Doan Hai Dang said such low-cost tours have been reported in many countries around the world such as South Korea, China and Thailand. However, these countries have taken effective measures to manage such tours.

Mr Dang remarked that such cheap tour operators encouraged their tour guides to take their clients to go shopping as much as possible in order to offset the costs of their tours.

Mr Nguyen Nhu Nam, the General Director of the Viet Nam Travel Mart Company, noted that such tours have resulted in the unfair competitive environment between travel agencies, and proving the clients with the low quality of tourism services.

According to preliminary statistics released by the municipal Department of Tourism, in 2019 alone, the city welcomed around 616,000 Chinese tourists on low-cost tours, accounting for 88% of the total number of Chinese visitor arrivals in the city. Meanwhile, about 357,000 South Korean nationals visited Da Nang through such cheap tours, making up 21% of the total number of South Korean visitor arrivals to the city.

Last year, inspectors from the municipal Department of Tourism conducted a total of over 160 inspections to travel agencies and hotels. As a result, administrative fines totalling more than 435 million VND, up 20% against 2018, were imposed on 20 organisations and 50 individuals for violating Viet Nam’s regulations about tourism activities.

In an effort to tackle this problem, the focus will be on tightening the management of foreigners who are temporarily residing in the city, and effectively implementing regulations on managing foreigners working in the city.

Importance will be attached to checking the origin and quality of goods, and their displayed prices, at shopping centres and restaurants, as well as to prevent tax collection losses at travel agents and tour operators specialising in serving Chinese and Korean visitors.

“Special attention will be paid to tightening checks on hotels, tour guides and tour operators in the city so as to prevent them from helping foreigners conduct illegal travel business in the locality”, Mrs Truong Thi Hong Hanh, Director of the municipal Department of Tourism, said.

She added her agency would coordinate with the city’s Tourism Association and Travel Club to offer cheapest possible tours for the Chinese tourist market in a bid to ensure the quality of tourism services in the city.

Heed would be paid to encouraging even more travel agencies to install surveillance cameras on their tourist coaches to monitor illegal tourism activities in a more effective manner.

Proposals will be made to the national government for issuing regulations on the management of cross-border electronic payment activities in order to avoid tax collection losses.

By HA KHUE - Translated by MAI DUNG