Inspector of MCST: Treating of the violence in tourism activities

(Cinet)- The ministry inspection has just cooperated to the General Directorate of Tourism, General Directorate of Security Ministry of Policeman to check the tourist guide, business and service in Hanoi, Quang Ninh as well as Hai Duong which are exploiting Korean market. Through that a lot of violence was found.

“Borrow” legal personality to seek profit

Recently the number of Korean tourist visiting Vietnam has dramatically increased, thus the welcome activities become more and more complicated. Many Korean travel agencies even sell tours in Korea and organize tours for Korean tourists in Vietnam. The result shows that the travel agencies in Korea sell tours which are cheaper than the air ticket announced then they transfer tours to their Korean representatives in Vietnam to implement. As the result, tourist visits Vietnam free of charge.

They use lost of cunning to make profit from the Korean tourists. Firstly, they join hands with shops selling Korean souvenirs to dupe tourists buy souvenirs with extremely high price then they will share the difference. Most of these shops which evade taxes are run by Korean guys. Secondly, they can use the low-quality services by booking hotel through other tourist agencies to get lower prices, reducing the expenses to minimum, evade all kinds of taxes so as to get the highest profit.

To organize tours, the Korean travel agencies are under cover of an international tourist company in Vietnam. The cost for the abetment and legal personality borrow is from $ US2 to $US4 per head, even only 5 cents in some companies.

The Korean travel agency directly hires Korean tourist guides to introduce and sell goods and a Vietnamese travel company assigns a Vietnamese guide to escort tour. When the inspectors check, Korean guide leaves visitors for Vietnamese guide to hide himself.

When checking Vietnamese tourist guides, all of them are guide of other languages not Korean. Many of them use the expired or false cards. The inspectors also found out that many Korean travel agencies work at the same office such as Lam Son-Kovi Center of Lam Son Trade Ltd.; Co. ( Room 501 Fortuna Hotel, 6B Lang ha street, Hanoi), Ha Na Ltd., Co. (#1002, 18T2 Trung Hoa, Nhan Chinh, Hanoi), Minh Viet service Ltd., Co. (50 Hang Chuoi street, Hanoi)

Reorganized measures

After checking 11 international travel companies (in which 2 of them are join-venture companies) and an illegal travel representative office, inspectors of MCST fines disposed behaviors such as: using foreign operators without work permit; using foreigner to be tourist guides in Vietnam, using incorrect company address to compare with the business license, hanging no company signboard at office, no travel contract with tourists or representative of tourists.

4 companies were revoked international travel business licenses: Ha Na Ltd., Co. (fined 30 million dong), Truyen Thong Viet Travel Ltd., Co. (fined 20.5 million dong), Minh Viet Ltd., Co, (fined 16.5 million dong), Dai Viet trade Ltd., Co. (fined 14 million dong). Ministry inspectors also give an administrative fine to 6 Korean people for no work permits and wrong immigration purpose and 10 Vietnamese guides for not wearing cards, no cards and a false card.  The total amount of fine of 17 individuals and companies is up to 285 million dong.

According to Chief of inspector of MCST Vu Xuan Thanh, there are many reasons leading to that situation. That is because we are lack of tourist guiding speaking Korean; the inspection task is not conducted regularly; we have invested much on Korean market; the cooperation between branches, levels on managing Korean tourist activities has not been comprehensive yet; the “borrow” legal personality of Korean travel agencies are very popular.

Confronted to that situation, inspectors of MCST proposed leadership of MCST to direct the General Directorate of Tourism make a training plan and issue card for tourist guides on using Korean properly; inspect and appraise the conditions of issue international travel business license; in addition, speed up promoting the image of Vietnam’s tourism, focus labor forces on Korean market; open representative offices in Korea; inform the minimum price of Vietnamese tour, announce Korean people the illegal behaviors of Korean travel agencies in Vietnam

Inspectors of MCST also said that it is necessary to create a structure to cooperate Ministry with branches to develop Korean tourist market, issue cooperation measures to manage means of transport, souvenir shops and reorganize the visa service as well as procedure of issuing work permit for foreigners working in tourism field.