Vietnam reopens for tourism... it remains to be seen if it will work

It's been a long time coming and the area that I live in has suffered greatly from the past two years. The government has been extremely strict on who can get into the country in the past 2 years and even those that could get in had to go through a vigorous process that included a 2-week quarantine and tons of probing your brain with PCR tests.

While the official Immigration release yesterday certainly isn't an open door policy the likes of which the country had pre-Covid, it is at least a step in the right direction and based on the wording that I've seen it looks like it will be even easier for people from some countries to get visas with a kind of "no questions asked" entry policy.

People will still need to be double vaccinated and submit to a rapid test upon arrival, but at least the doorway is open somewhat and hopefully this will bring a much-needed influx of cash.

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In the past Vietnam was considered one of the easiest countries to get and maintain a visa in and I think this is why so many digital nomads gravitated towards it. In the past few months they have gone back and forth on their decision making process as to how they were going to handle it but at least now we have a definitive answer as to who can get in, for how long, and how.

While I don't think this particular change is going to be particularly helpful, there are 13 countries that can arrive in Vietnam without a pre-arranged visa and get in the country for 15 days for free. As far as I remember, this policy didn't exist before: All visas had to be at least somewhat pre-arranged and then paid for upon arrival.

I really can't imagine a lot of people traveling all that distance from these countries just to spend 2 weeks here but then again, I don't really know how people do their vacationing these days, if they do it at all. The more helpful new rules are probably these ones.

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Japanese and South Korean tourists always constituted a very large portion of the visitors here and the fact that they can simply turn up and just walk in for free could work out very nicely. The 30 days offered to other countries might have some impact and this is because of an ASEAN agreement that was made many years ago. Despite this, I've never really noticed that many tourists from any of the other countries.

The great news for Americans is that Vietnam has returned to allowing 1-year tourist visas and according to a few friends of mine that have already received theirs from Vietnamese Consulates in the United States, the process involves a single piece of paper and $135. I have no idea why this is, but the United States is the only country that this 1-year visa is offered to.

Now we just have to sit and wait and see if it is makes any difference. I was on the beach yesterday for a walk and noticed that a lot of the beachfront operations including food trucks were all getting ready for business so I am hopeful that they are not doing this in vain. The area and the country really needs this and I hope it is a success.