HANOI, 30 November 2020: Vietnam’s Prime Minister, Nguyen Xuan Phuc, has approved a seven-day Lunar New Year break in early 2021 based on the proposal of the Ministry of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs.
The 2021 Lunar New Year break will cover seven days from 10 to 16 February 2021 according to the government’s statement at the weekend. The national holiday, when all businesses and government offices close, is the biggest festival in the annual calendar, prompting a mass exodus of travellers from cities mainly for family reunions. It provides a massive boost for domestic tourism.
The government also approved four days off for the 2021 National Day, 2 to 5 September 2021. By that time, officials are confident that international tourism should be back and Vietnamese will travel overseas to their favourite destinations in Asia.
Meanwhile, the government has confirmed the country’s tourism sector will lose up to USD23 billion in 2020 due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
Reported by the Vietnam Government Portal, the Minister of Culture, Sports and Tourism, Nguyen Ngoc Thien, told a national conference on tourism in Danang at the weekend, that foreign tourist arrivals will plunge by over 80% this year.
As the pandemic has been brought under control for nearly three months, the Vietnamese government said it would make every effort to pursue the dual goals of pandemic containment and economic recovery.
The national conference on tourism is part of the government’s measures to reboot tourism development to be ready for a “new normal” situation.
Tourism contributes about 6% of the country’s GDP. Inbound tourism grew 22.7% annually on average in the 2015-2019 period, from 7.9 million to 18 million.
Vietnam is ranked 63rd among 140 countries and territories on the Travel & Tourism Competitiveness Index (TTCI) 2019, up 12 places from 2015.
(Source VGP)
