At the 10th International Travel Expo last week in HCMC, tourism officials from Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Thailand and Myanmar agreed that a single visa policy should be put in place to ease travel restrictions and boost tourism to SE Asia, reports Vietnam Briefing.
The 5 counties make up the Ayeyawadi – Chao Phraya – Mekong Economic Cooperation Strategy (ACMECS) organization which hopes to attract 50 million international visitors by 2015.
The idea was initially brought up in 2013, but progress has been slow, save for a Thailand/Cambodia pilot visa program which allows international tourists who have been issued a visa for either country to visit the other without applying for a new visa.
ACMECS was formed in April 2003 to “utilize member countries’ diverse strengths and to promote balanced development in the sub-region,” with a focus on greater cooperation in trade and investment facilitation and transportation.
“Vietnam is seeing strong growth in its own tourism industry and has much to gain from implementing the one visa policy for the region. For many tourists, one of the key impediments to travel between countries in Southeast Asia has been the need to negotiate a variety of visa regulations and the associated costs. In 2013, Vietnam attracted 7.57 million international visitors, a rise of 10.6 percent over the previous year. For 2014, Vietnam has the goal of drawing over eight million international visitors,” wrote Vietnam Briefing.
A single visa policy would be an incredibly logical step to boosting tourism. Sadly, logic doesn’t always prevail…
