Visitors from Canada, the Netherlands, New Zealand and the U.A.E have also been added to the list.
Foreign tourists in Hanoi. Photo by Vu Dung Pham/VnExpress Photo Contest
Vietnam has extended its e-visa application scheme for visitors from six more countries including major tourism markets Australia and India, raising the list of beneficiaries to 46.
A government decision said the e-visa system is now also available for visitors from Australia, Canada, India, the Netherlands, New Zealand, and the U.A.E.
Vietnam has allowed foreign tourists to apply for electronic visas (e-visas) from February 1, 2017, starting with citizens from 40 countries including China, Japan, South Korea, the U.S., the U.K., Germany and Sweden, all major target markets for Vietnam’s tourism sector.
Among the new additions, Australians are the seventh biggest group of foreign arrivals to Vietnam and among the top spenders, while visitors from the other markets have grown strongly this year.
Under the program, tourists will be able to apply online for 30-day, single-entry e-visas by paying a non-refundable application fee online.
Applicants are required to complete a form available on two separate websites (one in Vietnamese and the other in English) run by the Ministry of Public Security. They will receive an application code and will be asked to pay a non-refundable fee online.
It takes three working days for tourists to find out if their applications have been approved or not, according to the directive.
Visitors with e-visas can touch down at any of Vietnam’s eight international airports, including Tan Son Nhat in Ho Chi Minh City, Noi Bai in Hanoi and Da Nang in the central region. They can also arrive via land at 13 international border gates, and via sea at seven ports across the country.
The e-visa program, which is still under trial mode, is one of the efforts taken by the Vietnamese government to make tourism a key economic driver.
With the new system, as well as visa waiver policies for various big markets in Asia and Europe, the tourism industry hopes to welcome 17-20 million foreign visitors and gain $35 billion per year by 2020, contributing to 10 percent to the country’s gross domestic product, compared to the current 7.5 percent.
Visitors to Vietnam in the first 11 months this year increased almost 28 percent from a year ago to more than 11.6 million, according to figures from the General Statistics Office
Source: e.vnexpress.net