VNBusinessNews – New procedures for licensing foreign travel firms’ representative offices will begin soon following a circular issued by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism.

Minister Hoang Tuan Anh signed Circular 89/2008/TT-BVHTTDL which gives detailed guidance of Government Decree 92/2007/ND-CP for the Tourism Law for the travel sector. When the circular is published on the official gazette, the nation’s tourism departments can start to issue licenses to travel offices.

The Vietnam National Administration of Tourism (VNAT) is in charge of licensing foreign travel firms’ branches in the country.

The circular comes three years after the Tourism Law was promulgated and about one and a half years after Decree 92/2007/ND-CP to this regard was issued by the Government, during which time representative offices of foreign travel firms were not able to operate properly.

Over 20 foreign offices in HCMC operating on old licenses now wait for new licenses, according to the travel division of the city’s department of Culture, Sports and Tourism.

The circular lays down guidelines for the travel sector such as training tour guides and tourism promotions.

Under the new rules, capital of foreign-local joint venture travel companies will not be limited by the government.

However, these companies are only authorized to provide travel service inside Vietnam and only with Vietnamese tour guides.

According to VNAT, Vietnam has around 700 travel companies in the inbound sector. Of these, 69 are state owned, 227 are joint-stock companies, 12 are foreign-local joint venture companies, 388 are limited liability companies and four are private.

The country has 6,000 people holding professional cards to guide international tourists.

The minister also approved the 88/2008/TT-BVHTTDL circular that guides the 92/2007/N