The Vietnam National Administration of Tourism has ordered travel firms to temporarily suspend tours to Bangkok, the center of Thailand’s political unrest that has so far claimed 21 lives.
In an emergency dispatch Monday the tourism body also asked them to limit the number of Vietnamese traveling to other high-risk areas in Thailand.
Pichai Raktashina, director of the Tourism Authority of Thailand in Ho Chi Minh City, said Vietnamese arrivals have halved compared to the same period last year due to the problem in his country.
He said Vietnamese tour operators should take tourists to other Thai attractions like Phuket and Pattaya instead of Bangkok.
Tran The Duy, director of outbound tourism at travel firm Vietravel, told Tuoi Tre his company has suffered a 50 percent decrease in the number of tour bookings to Thailand compared to the pre-unrest period.
Vietnamese travelers have switched to other nearby destinations like Malaysia, Hong Kong, and Singapore for their vacations.
Thailand, one of the most popular destinations for Vietnamese, attracts some 360,000 of them each year.
Source : VietNews