Vietnam urges ASEAN members to ease Covid restrictions for tourism recovery

Vietnam agreed to join other members of ASEAN in efforts to return tourist numbers to pre-pandemic levels and called on them to completely lift Covid-19 restrictions to foster recovery.

Ha Van Sieu, deputy head of the Vietnam National Administration of Tourism, said at an online regional tourism conference on Wednesday that ASEAN countries have gradually reopened their borders to foreign tourists in recent months but some Covid restrictions remain.

He hoped they would consider the removal of all entry restrictions to restore intra-regional tourism links.

Indonesia, Cambodia and Singapore still require foreign tourists to produce vaccination certificates.

Though Thailand has lifted most Covid restrictions, visitors still need to furnish a vaccine certificate or negative Covid test result.

Vietnam only has travel insurance requirement and targets getting five million tourists this year, 30 percent of the number in 2019 before the pandemic broke out.