The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism has asked the Government to consider the extension of visa exemption for citizens from England, France, Germany, Spain and Italy from 1 to 5 years, and to increase time for visa-free entry from 15 to 30 days to be suitable with the demand of tourists from Western Europe.

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The Ministry also urged the Government to consider and approve the proposal on unilateral visa exemption for citizens of 13 countries travelling to Vietnam under package tours provided by international travel agencies in Vietnam, the expansion of unilateral visa exemption for citizens of some countries which are key tourist markets of Vietnam, and the application of granting visas at border gates and online visas to facilitate tourists travelling to Vietnam.

According to the Ministry, after 10 months of implementing visa exemption for Belarus and the five Western European countries, tourist arrivals from these markets continued to increase with specific growth of 4.24%, 16.49% and 20% in the third quarter of 2015, the fourth quarter of 2015 and the first quarter of 2016, respectively, compared to an decrease of 1% in the first six months of 2015.

Total tourists from the five markets during the nine months reached over 554,000 arrivals, up 13.9% against the same period of 2014 and 2015, reported the General Statistics Office.

For Belarus, in 2015, tourists from the market to Vietnam were nearly 6,000 arrivals, up 65% from 2014, the highest-ever increase rate./.

( Compiled by VNF )