Photo for illustration. (Source: thanhuytphcm.vn)
This month, the southern city earned more than 1.15 trillion VND from tourism activities, down 86% from a year earlier and total revenue in the first 7 months of 2021 is estimated at 38.816 trillion VND, down 8.6% compared to the same period in 2020.
The Department continued to advise the city People’s Committee to consider 4 groups of contents proposed to support tourism businesses to recover after the epidemic. At the same time, it also advised the agency to issue a decision recognizing Cu Chi Tunnels Relic Site, Vietnam Glimpse Tourist Area, Post Office, and Ve Que Eco-tourism Area as tourist spots. With these, so far the hub has had 14 recognized tourist spots.
Over the past time, the Department also coordinated with the People’s Committees of districts to inspect 4 tourist accommodation establishments that met the minimum conditions as prescribed and cooperated with relevant agencies and units to appraise tourist accommodation establishments as centralized medical isolation places for F1 contacts and the doctors and nurses involved in treatment at field hospitals.
It coordinated with the Ho Chi Minh city Electricity Corporation to apply discounts on electricity bills for 1,607 tourist accommodation establishments affected by the epidemic.
In addition, the unit also continued to implement the set of safety assessment criteria in the field of tourism and self-assessment of safety against the COVID-19 epidemic developed by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism. According to statistics at http://safe.tourism.com.vn, 1,175 tourism businesses in the city successfully registered and self-assessed COVID-19 safety.
As of July 29, 2021, HCM City has 117 tourist accommodation establishments with 5,328 rooms recognized as concentrated isolation areas for F1 contacts, and 75 hotels with 5,564 rooms as concentrated isolation areas with fees for foreign experts and Vietnamese people entering the country.
To support people in need of isolation, nearly 100 hotels agreed to provide free support and offer discounts from 30%-70% for some people who cannot afford room prices and those who are in particularly difficult situations.
In support of epidemic prevention and control, many tourism businesses arranged volunteers and provided hundreds of vehicles to hospitals for COVID-19 treatment. The tourism industry also provided necessities, medical equipment and thousands of meals, drinking water, along with gifts to field hospitals, local medical facilities, and people in the blockade areas./.