HCMCity (VNA) - The HCM City Tourism Association has submitted aproposal to the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism on further extension ofvisa exemption for tourists coming from the UK, France, Germany, Spain andItaly.

Thevisa waiver programme for the five European countries will expire at theend of June.

Itremains unclear if the Government will extend the visa waiver, causinguncertainty to the tourism industry and making it difficult for tourismagencies to develop marketing plans for these markets, the association said.

The visa waiver for tourists, which began in mid-2015, has helped increase thenumber of foreign visitor arrivals.

The association has asked the government to approve exemptions forfive years instead of making renewal every year, and to increase themaximum stay to 30 days from the current 15.

Theassociation chairwoman, Nguyen Thi Khanh, also asked the government to exemptvisas from other countries, including from key markets such as Australia,New Zealand, Canada, India, Austria, Netherlands, and Belgium.

Arrivals from these markets have risen sharply, with many peopletaking a long vacation and spending a lot, Khanh said.

Visa waivers for citizens from the five Western European countriesreportedly increased arrivals from these markets by 10.1 percent, according tothe Vietnam Tourism Advisory Board.

Inthe first three months of the year, the number of foreign tourists visitingVietnam surged by 30.9 percent compared to the same period last year to reach4.2 million, according to the General Statistics Office.

Overthe period, HCM City welcomed nearly 2 million foreign tourists, accounting forhalf of the total number of foreign tourists visiting Vietnam.-VNA