A Vietnamese official welcomed the inclusion on the list of 40 countries from Wednesday (March 15) to receive China's outbound tourism group business, which has been suspended for about three years worldwide due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
China's Ministry of Culture and Tourism released a list approved by 40 countries on Friday. China Daily reported that Feng Xian, a cultural counselor at the Chinese Embassy in Vietnam, met with Nguyen Feng Hoa, head of international cooperation under Vietnam's Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, and that the two countries had enjoyed strong tourism cooperation even before the COVID-19 pandemic.
Ms Hoa is said to have welcomed China's contribution to tourism cooperation between the two countries. Separately, the Vietnamese news agency reported in an article published on Monday that China was the largest individual sauce market for tourists in Vietnam before the pandemic. 파친코
In 2019, Vietnam welcomed 5.8 million Chinese tourists, accounting for nearly 30% of foreign tourists, and 4.5 million Vietnamese visited China in the opposite direction that year, the news agency said.
Vietnam has a casino industry, all but one open to foreigners, and in the fall, Vietnam and China agreed to promote bilateral cooperation on "cross-border gambling" among several law enforcement topics.
Earlier, China included a total of 20 countries on its outbound travel group approval list from Feb. 6, including Asia-Pacific countries with casino industries such as Cambodia, Malaysia, the Philippines and Singapore. In November, Cambodia and China agreed to strengthen cooperation, including efforts to crack down on online gambling and telecommunications fraud.
South Korea, a popular destination for Chinese tourists before the pandemic, was not approved by China to resume group tours, but was lifted on March 11 after South Korean authorities demanded COVID-19 tests on tourists arriving from mainland China, Hong Kong and Macau after China eased its COVID-19 response measures in early January.