Enterprises wait for circulation of “vaccine passport”

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However, the opening of the domestic market also needs to have a specific roadmap to ensure pandemic prevention.

Cautions raised

Recently, the Prime Minister assigned the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism to direct, and coordinate with concerned ministries and branches in studying, evaluating and proposing appropriate measures on the issue of opening and receiving international visitors.

We had to considercarefullycriteria for the selection of source market, number of tourists, package tour, medical factors such as vaccination, isolation; convenience to reach destinations by air;and independent range of resorts. The most important criterion when opening up international markets was to ensure safety againstthe pandemic. The General Department of Tourism was discussing opening up to international visitors with the development of detailed plans, with clear criteria, but notopenmassively.Recently, at aseminar, Deputy Director of the General Department of Tourism Nguyen Thi Thanh Huong said that the General Department of Tourism had discussed the opening plan forthe international market when conditions permitted.

According to Mr. Vu The Binh, Standing Vice Chairman of Vietnam Tourism Association, the association would have a project to submit to the Government to assign the association as a pilot to welcome international visitors atan appropriate time.

The association would coordinate with ministries, branches and large tourism enterprises to participate in the project.

Mr. Vu The Binh also said that we must plan carefully to welcome international tourists.The world had launched the "vaccine passport" program and had received many supportive comments. In the future, the vaccination would be the same proof as the visa attached to the passport to allow international visitors.

The health sector has also prepared to developa Covid-19 "vaccine passport", creating momentum to open the country and create opportunities for Vietnamese citizens to travel abroad.

On the online training conference on Covid-19 vaccination nationwide, Minister of Health Nguyen Thanh Long said that different from other countries and from previous vaccination procedures,Vietnam would conduct pre-vaccination screening with Covid-19 to ensure vaccination safety,although it takeslonger. Next, in order to smoothly manage the vaccination campaign, the Ministry of Health would manage the data of each person on the personal health record system. Vietnam hascompleted more than 97 million records.

The Ministry of Health has required each medical facility and immunization facility to download software designed by the Ministry of Health to best serve the vaccination program. Each citizen must download the health record application. This helps the health sector increase proactive surveillance from medical facilities and quickly receive feedback on the situationof people after injecting.

Chairman of the Vietnam Tourism Association Nguyen HuuTho said that at this time, domestic tourism was still the key point of Vietnamese tourism in general and Hanoi tourism in particular. However, the tourism industry should prepare plans to welcome international visitors as soon as conditions permitted, especially when the world was considering the implementation of a "vaccine passport" and many countries in Southeast Asiahad plans to welcome international visitors.

"The tourism industryneeds to immediately implement a plan to stimulate domestic tourism demand in localities, but also need to actively build a plan to welcome international visitors not to be out of stepcompared to other countries," Mr. Nguyen HuuThosaid.

A "Vaccine passport" is a bright spot to promote the development of tourism enterprises and import-export enterprises. In 2020, due tothe Covid-19 pandemic, like many other travel companies, the Golden Smile Joint Stock Company (Hanoi) had to cancel many domestic and international tours.

Since then, this company has always maintained operations in a state of "sluggishness", many employees of the companyhad to switch to other jobs to maintain their income, waiting until the pandemic is over.

Mr. Chu Van Dac, Sales Manager, Golden Smile Joint Stock Company, said:“In the past, we have always tried to maintain operations by expanding the domestic tourism market, however,with the pandemic, the number of tourists booking tours is negligible.So, travel enterprises are expecting a Covid-19 "vaccine passport" to open up the domestic and international tourism market. However, to choose a country to put into exploitation is an issue, it relates to the policies of Vietnam, the receiving countries or directly the countries that have vaccines or vaccination policies.”

Until now, travel enterprises still hope to have the basic policies to be able to accompany and launch international tourism. “However, while waiting for the re-launch of the international market, enterprises are always conscious of pandemic prevention, deployment and selection of safe products for visitors, from which to choose suitable seasonalproducts to serve customers,” said Mr. Chu Van Dac.

Not only havetravel companies struggled, many labor export enterprises also have to dissolve because of the Covid-19 pandemic. Many domestic workers are waiting forcontrol of the pandemic to get visas to work in other countries.Mr. Pham Van Thanh, Head of Sales Department of Global Labor Supply and Tourism Joint Stock Company (CauGiay, Hanoi), hopes that the Covid-19 vaccine would provide opportunities to rehabilitate labor export enterprises.

He said: “When there is a Covid-19 vaccine, the pandemic situation will be controlled, thus the labor market will be opened up, from which workers will be able to move to othercountries. Workerswishing to work abroad are also less hesitant about leaving. Moreover, production activities of enterprises and factories will be stable because economic activities will return to development, thereby creating opportunities for labor export companies again.”

But Mr. Thanh also said that the opening of the labor market should be done gradually, to ensure the interests of workers and to control the pandemic effectively.