Economists have urged management agencies to simplify the administrative procedures in order to attract more foreign travellers to Vietnam.

The US film studio came to Vietnam to survey the possibility of producing and filming the fourth chapter of Bourne, a global famous television film series, with the acting of Matt Damon.

Vietnam has failed to become the destination of a filming project worth 150 million dollars directed by Universal Studios, just because of the overly complicated procedures.

The information has been released by Baron Ah Moo, a senior executive of Indochina Land at a forum held recently.

According to Baron Ah Moo, the US film studio came to Vietnam to survey the possibility of producing and filming the fourth chapter of Bourne, a global famous television film series, with the acting of Matt Damon.

However, as it took too much time to negotiate with relevant ministries, Universal felt that it would be too difficult to get licenses for filming. Besides, the obstacles in logistics has made the film studio to choose another place for filming – another South East Asian country.

The filming project is considered the “golden opportunity” for Vietnam to promote tourism, especially when this is a famous movie piece, because movies always have big impacts on the development of the tourism industry. Also according to Baron Ah Moo, this is really a “regrettable incident”, and it would have been much better if relevant agencies could have made quick decisions in such cases.

Vietnam’s tourism industry has rapidly regained the fast growth rate after the global crisis period, with the number of foreign travelers increasing by 34 percent in 2010 in comparison with the year before. The upward trend still can be seen in this year with 2 million foreign travelers having arrived in Vietnam by the end of April, an increase of 10.5 percent over the same period of the last year.

According to the General Statistics Office, the hotel, tourism and restaurant business brought the turnover of VND187 trillion (USD9.4 billion) in 2010, accounting for 9.5 percent of the total GNP of the year.

According to the World Travel and Tourism Council WTTC, the tourism industry can create 1.4 million direct jobs in 2011, and another 3.8 indirect jobs.

Despite the great achievements, tourism firms still believe that the results have still been far from the potentials of Vietnam.

The tourism working group of the Vietnam Business Forum has recently made some proposals in order to help develop Vietnam’s tourism.

First, the working group has suggested establishing a tourism consultancy council which serves as the bridge for the state management agencies and the private sector to exchange information. The most important task of the council is to heighten Vietnam’s competitive edge as a good MICE (meetings, incentives, conferences, exhibitions) destination, by creating favorable conditions for the government and leaders of management agencies to mobilize resources for the development of the tourism industry.

Second, the working group has proposed to follow a reasonable, methodical and consistent policy in polishing Vietnam’s image as a good tourism destination. In January 2011, the working group conducted a survey on marketing the destination point, in order to collect information from different sources on defining a strategy for Vietnam’s tourism development.

Third, the working group believes that Vietnam needs to minimize the limitations in granting visas to foreign travelers. A survey has found out that up to 98 percent of polled people said the current regulations on granting visas are the big obstacle for tourists.

Citing the case of Thailand, Baron Ah Moo said there are still too many things Vietnam needs to do to develop tourism. From mid to the end of 1980 decade, Thailand could attract 5-6 million foreign tourists a year. After 30 years, the number of foreign travelers to Thailand has reached 15 million a year, despite the political uncertainties in the country.

He has pointed out that the success of Thailand in attracting international tourists (many of them return to Asia and other far markets) is the result of an open entry policy. Vietnam will also succeed if it can apply the “visa at the port of arrival” mechanism.

He has emphasised that the current regulations on granting visas have hindered the attracting of foreign travelers, especially in persuading travelers to return to Vietnam for the second time.