Vietnam plans to reopen up Phu Quoc for fully vaccinated tourists with a negative covid result. They will be allowed to fly out there on charter or commercial flights.
All residents of Phu Quoc will be fully vaccinated before it is opened up, the government said. It also said that there were no reports of any community infections from the island and it had enough facilities for quarantine and treatment for covid.
No visitors are currently allowed to enter Vietnam except for returning citizens and investors.
In 2019, revenue from tourism was $31 billion, which was 12% of its GDP. Since then the number of foreign visitors has declined from 18 million in 2019 to 3.8 million last year and along with it, the revenue as well. The continued pandemic has hurt the tourism industry badly, said the tourism and culture minister of Vietnam, Nguyen Van Hung.
In the past 3 months, infections have gone up due to the Delta variant. Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh said that lockdowns and quarantine alone are not working anymore. In Ho Chi Minh City, which is the epicentre of the recent outbreak, restaurants can offer takeaway meals and shippers can work more widely, allowing for a slight relaxation of a tough lockdown, told the foreign ministry.
(Reuters)
