Vietnam’s resort island welcomes first tourists after nearly 2 years

A staff member pushes a cleaning trolley inside the Vinpearl resort on Phu Quoc island, on Nov 19, 2021. PHOTO: AFP

HANOI/PHU QUOC (REUTERS, AFP) - Two hundred vaccinated foreign tourists arrived in Vietnam's beach-fringed island of Phu Quoc on Saturday (Nov 20), the first wave of visitors to the country in nearly two years as it seeks to resurrect its pandemic-ravaged tourism economy.

Vietnam imposed tight border controls at the start of the pandemic in an effort to keep out Covid-19, with some initial success, but that harmed its burgeoning tourism sector, which typically accounts for about 10% of gross domestic product.

Vaccinated tourists now do not have to undergo mandatory two-week quarantine, according to the authorities, but are required to enjoy their holiday only inside the mega complex resort Vinpearl and will be tested twice during their trip.

"This is the first and vital step to revive our tourism sector and to prepare for the full resumption next year," Nguyen Trung Khanh, chairman of the country's tourism administration said in statement. "We want to offer tourists a new experience amid new normalcy which they can live fully in Phu Quoc and then live fully in Vietnam."

The island's authorities expect to welcome 400,000 domestic and international tourists to the end of this year. Other Vietnamese destinations such as the Unesco world heritage site Hoi An and Danang beach are also welcoming international tourists back.

The move follows similar steps taken by neighbouring Thailand, which hosted vaccinated foreign tourist for quarantine-free holiday earlier this month.

Foreign arrivals to Vietnam slumped from 18 million in 2019, when tourism revenue was US$31 billion (S$42 billion), or nearly 12 per cent of its gross domestic product, to 3.8 million last year.

Vietnam, which has inoculated more than half of its 98 million people, is seeking to resume international commercial flights from January next year and eyeing a full tourism reopening from June.

Tour guide Lai Chi Phuc has been counting down the days until travellers return to the white-sand beaches and thick tropical jungle of Phu Quoc, a once-poor fishing island pushing to be Asia's next holiday hotspot as pandemic restrictions ease.

Far from a lazy beach break, their stay promises to be a whirlwind of action and entertainment as they shuffle between the 12,000-room hotel complex, an amusement park, 18-hole golf course, casino, safari park and miniature Venice.

The US$2.8 billion leisure resort, part of the "sleepless city" model, opened six months ago as Covid-19 ravaged tourism across the world - and as other Asian countries reliant on the industry, like Thailand, were rethinking their mass tourism frameworks.

For 33-year-old Phuc, who remembers a poverty-stricken childhood where "everyone wanted to escape Phu Quoc", the island's growing popularity gave him a way to return home after years of scratching out a living as a salesman in the nearby cities of the Mekong Delta.

"But it's a pity also," he told AFP, lamenting the loss of the island's palm-fringed beaches to resorts.

Flood of plastic

Ahead of Saturday's reopening, staff at Vinpearl resort swept beaches, arranged cutlery on tables and laid out sunbeds. Others busied themselves painting delicate flowers on conical hats.

"When we heard visitors were coming back, I was just so excited," said duty manager Ngo Thi Bich Thuong.

Before the pandemic in 2019, around five million people, including half a million foreigners - mostly from China, South Korea, Japan and Russia - holidayed on Phu Quoc.

Vingroup - the enormously powerful conglomerate behind the new complex - is pushing to make the island "a new international destination on the world tourist map".

To cater for the tourist boom, 40,000 hotel rooms have been built, planned or are under construction, vice-chairman of the Vietnam Tourism Advisory Board Ken Atkinson told AFP.

"That's more hotel keys than they have in Sydney, Australia," he said.

Globally popular vacation spots such as Thailand's Phuket have given Vietnam something to aim for.

Mr Atkinson took a group of senior Vietnamese government officials there in 2005, but while Phuket's vibrant international tourist scene took years to build up, "Vietnam has a tendency of wanting to do everything all at once", he noted.

"Unfortunately I don't think there was enough attention given to what would be in the long-term benefit of the island," he added.

The Vinpearl leisure complex on Phu Quoc island, on Nov 19, 2021. PHOTO: AFP

Phu Quoc is a Unesco biosphere reserve - surrounding waters are stuffed with coral reefs and its beaches were once nesting spots for Hawksbill and Green turtles.

But no nesting has taken place in recent years, the United Nations body said in their last assessment in 2018.

The World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) has warned of "an almost unimaginable flood of plastic" that chokes rivers, canals and sealife.

Around 160 tonnes of trash - almost enough to fill 16 lorries - is generated every day, according to WWF, which says the island's waste management is not fit to cope with the tourism explosion.

"More and more tourists are very conscious of the environment. They don't want to be going to places where beaches are littered or where effluent is going into the sea," Mr Atkinson warned.

An aerial view of a beach along Phu Quoc island. PHOTO: AFP

Pockets of paradise

But alongside the trash, and the garish headline attractions - including the world's longest non-stop three-rope cable car and Vietnam's first teddy bear museum - there are still pockets of paradise.

Mr Chu Dinh Duc, 26, from mainland Vietnam, first saw Phu Quoc from the back of a motorbike in 2017.

Speeding through dense forests and winding his way to the few remaining sleepy villages where fishermen cast their nets into the ocean as the sun came up, he fell in love.

Two years later, he opened a simple homestay business catering to foreigners.

"My goal here is not to take a lot of their money," he said. "But I want as many as possible to come."

"If Phu Quoc remained undeveloped, it would just be a pearl undiscovered."

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