Saudi Arabia is considering issuing electronic visas to Vietnamese citizens and hopes to soon have direct flights between the two countries.
This information was shared by Princess Haifa bint Mohammed Al-Saud, Deputy Minister of Tourism of Saudi Arabia, at the signing ceremony of the Action Program in the field of tourism with the Ministry of Culture, Sports & Tourism, on the occasion of the Prime Minister’s visit. General Pham Minh Chinh, October 18-20.
Along with considering issuing electronic visas, the Saudi Ministry of Tourism will work with domestic travel and tourism companies to research and develop product packages suitable to the tastes of Vietnamese tourists.
This is one of Saudi Arabia’s steps to open the tourism market, aiming to achieve the goal of attracting more than 100 million international visitors by 2030 and making tourism the second most profitable industry, after oil.
Saudi Arabia started issuing tourist visas to international visitors from September 2019. After 4 years of opening, this country’s tourism recorded skyrocketing profits, reaching over 49 billion USD by 2022, with more than 90 million visitors (domestic and international).
Minister of Culture, Sports and Tourism Nguyen Van Hung shared that Vietnam has a project to build and develop the Halal industry until 2030, so it hopes Saudi Arabia will support learning about tourist tastes, markets and develop standards and regulations on Halal tourism.
“Vietnam wants to increase international cooperation to build and develop the Halal value chain in accordance with tourism tastes from the Muslim community, of which Saudi Arabia is one of the key partners and markets.” “, Mr. Hung said.
The tourism action program signed between Vietnam and Saudi Arabia will help the two countries increase information sharing, experience, human resource development and training, and seek tourism investment opportunities.
Previously, receiving leading Saudi corporations in the field of tourism, Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh also agreed to research opening a direct flight between Vietnam and Saudi Arabia. This will support tourism development and import and export of goods between the two countries.
Three years ago, Vietnam and Saudi Arabia signed an air transport agreement, creating conditions for establishing flight routes between and outside the two countries’ territories. According to Mr. Dang Ngoc Hoa, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Vietnam Airlines, in the near future this airline and Saudi Airlines will deploy code-sharing flights (codeshare flights), thereby moving towards opening direct flights between the two countries.
Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh is visiting Saudi Arabia and attending the first ASEAN-GCC Summit, at the invitation of King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud. Saudi Arabia is Vietnam’s leading economic partner in the Middle East. In 2022, the two countries’ trade turnover will reach 2.7 billion USD, and over 2 billion in the first 9 months of this year.