HANOI, 14 September 2021: Vietnam’s Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism has officially approved a proposal detailing a plan to welcome tourists back under a vaccine passport programme using the holiday Island Phu Quoc as the testbed.
Phu Quoc island stands off the southern coast of Vietnam in the Gulf of Thailand and is under the Mekong Delta province of Kien Giang.
Visitors from countries with high safety records in Covid-19 prevention and control in regions such as Northeast Asia, Europe, the US, the Middle East, and Australia will need to book package tours exclusively through travel agencies and fly direct to Phu Quoc Island.
To enter the country, visitors must meet certain requirements, including a certificate showing full vaccination, or recovery from Covid-19 not more than 12 months from the date of their release from the hospital to the date of entry in Vietnam. They also have to present a negative Covid-19 test result within 72 hours of their flight departure from their home country.
On arrival at Phu Quoc airport, they will need to install the Vietnam Safe Travel or the Healthy Vietnam apps and make a medical declaration through those apps. In case visitors do not meet all the necessary requirements, they may be denied entry and bear the cost of returning to their home country or transit.
According to the Vietnam News Agency, Phu Quoc will start receiving the first tourists under the pilot project this October, and the experiment will continue with two phases lasting three months each for evaluation purposes. During phase one, an estimated 3,000 to 5,000 international visitors per month could join the scheme flying in on charter flights, with visitors’ activities limited to specific beaches and sites decided by local authorities.
At best, the project could attract as many as 5,000 to 10,000 visitors per month during the second three-month phase.
(Source: VNA)
Vietnam expects 5000-1000 tourist to come into Phu Quoc, when Thailand in the past 6 months could only get 30000 in that time period? If Vietnam is only opening Phu Quoc, I am sure only less than 2000 would actually want to go to Phu Quoc only. Let people go to Phu Quoc with the option of going into Vietnam after would be the best choice.