HANOI – Vietnam’s tourism ministry on Tuesday (Feb 15) proposed a full reopening of the country to foreign visitors and lifted nearly all travel restrictions from March 15.
The proposal, which will be submitted to the prime minister for approval, follows similar reopening steps taken by other Southeast Asian countries like Thailand and the Philippines, where the Omicron COVID-19 variant has caused a recent spike in new infections, but fewer hospitalisations and deaths than previous variants.
International arrivals fell to 157,000 last year, compared with 18 million in 2019.Â
Vietnam has since November allowed foreign tourists to visit designated places under a vaccine passport programme and had originally aimed to fully reopen the industry from June.
