Foreign tourists in Ho Chi Minh City (Source: cafebiz.vn) HCM City (VNA) - The government’s relief and credit packages are nowvital to help Ho Chi Minh City’s travel companies survive the coronaviruscrisis, Deputy Director of the municipal Department of Tourism Nguyen Thi AnhHoa has said.
Thedomestic tourism sector, which had only recently started to recover, hassuffered another setback with the return of coronavirus, Hoa said.
Around70 percent of travel firms resumed operations in May thinking the COVID-19pandemic was under control, she said.
Thedomestic travel market had started to recover with a city tourism stimulusprogramme that runs from June until the end of the year.
Butthen more than 35,000 bookings for tour packages, free and easy tours,hotels, air tickets, and travel services were cancelled due to COVID-19concerns, resulting in a loss of revenues of 21 billion VND (906,000 USD),according to a report by the department.
Nearly90 percent of travel agencies in the city have temporarily shut doors with most of their staff being told to goon unpaid leave, according to the report.
Around90 percent of staff at three- to five-star hotels have been told to take unpaidleave or laid off. At others hotels, the rate is more than 80 percent.
Hoasaid the current economic uncertainty makes the Government’s reliefpackages imperative for travel companies to survive.
Butmost find it extremely difficult to borrow under the programmes from banks orbenefit from tax breaks, she admitted.
Lessthan 10 tour guides in the city have managed to get financial support from theGovernment’s social security package of 62 trillion VND (2.66 billion USD) forpeople directly affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, she said.
Thereare 5,864 licensed tour guides in the city, including 3,544 who speak foreignlanguages./.
VNA
