Thua Thien-Hue offers discount programme to attract tourists

The central province of Thua Thien-Hue has reduced entrance fees to local tourist sites by 50% to lure more visitors.

The central province of Thua Thien-Hue has reduced entrance fees to local tourist sites by 50% to lure more visitors.

  

Empty streets during social distancing period

The decision was announced during an irregular meeting on May 8 and approved by the provincial people's committee. According to the committee, the Covid-19 pandemic has badly affected the tourism sector in Thua Thien-Hue.

In a short period of time, all figures about the number of tourists and revenues plummeted as transportation firms, hotels and restaurants closed. Some companies are on the brink of bankruptcy and thousands of people have lost jobs or reduced salaries.

In the first four months of 2020, the province welcomed 940,069 tourists, a drop of 50% compared to the same period last year. The number of overnight tourists stood at 426,911, decreased by 44.95%. The total revenues earned from the tourism industry dropped by 45% to over VND2trn (USD86m).

According to Thua Thien-Hue People's Committee, accumulated losses in the first four months were over VND2.2trn. Direct losses from tourism businesses, excluding bank interest rates and depreciation loss, was over VND700bn.

The authorities have proposed various solutions to boost the market such as national tourism conference in late May, stimulus packages and promotion programmes for new products and services. The provincial authorities will launch its stimulus package in 2020 and introduce stimulus package from enterprises.

They will co-operate with the authorities in Danang and Quang Nam to build new central region tour packages. New festivals and events will be held to attract more visitors along with reducing the entrance fees to tourist spots from May 8 to July 31.