Vietnam slashes visa fees

BANGKOK Thai Airways International will focus on expanding operations between Australia and Europe, according to Centre for Asia Pacific Aviation’s recent analysis.
CAPA said THAI sees an opportunity to regain market share as other Asian airlines reduce their focus on Australia.
“Other Asia airlines are now reducing their focus on the Australia-Europe route, concluding that it is nearly impossible to compete with the Gulf carriers. But THAI’s new management team sees this as an opportunity,” the CAPA assessment said.
THAI believes it can offer an alternative to a transit stop in the Middle East, while believing Bangkok could also be a viable stopover to break the journey between Australia and Europe.
inside no 4In the past it had a much stronger role in this market competing with Qantas that used Bangkok as a transit hub alongside Singapore. However, the importance of the Bangkok transit hub diminished for the so-called kangaroo route. Singapore took the lead, but that was later lost to Dubai after Qantas and Emirates inked a partnership deal.
While Australia’s outbound market has been impacted by the depreciation of the Australian dollar overall international traffic to and from Australia continues to grow.
Over the last three years, total passenger traffic between Australia/New Zealand and Europe has increased by approximately 50%, according to data from OAG Traffic Analyser.
THAI carried only about 3% of total passengers in the Australia/New Zealand-Europe market in the 12 months ending July 2015, according to OAG Traffic Analyser.
It was the ninth largest airline in this market over the specified timeframe, behind Emirates (about 27%), Singapore Airlines (15%), Etihad (11%), Qantas (9%), Qatar Airways (7%), Cathay Pacific (6%), MAS (5%) and British Airways (4%).
“In Australia and Europe THAI has traditionally focused more on local inbound traffic to Thailand. It has always received some transit passengers, but often these have been passengers seeking a stopover in Thailand in one direction,” the centre said.
THAI believes by improving network connectivity it can attract more pure transit traffic. The airline needs more transit traffic to reduce its reliance on the local market and boost yields, particularly if it succeeds at attracting more premium transit traffic in markets such as Australia-Europe.
THAI also sees opportunities to increase connecting traffic from Australia and Europe to regional destinations in Asia.
Regional connections, particularly to secondary cities, are generally higher yielding and do not face competition from Gulf carriers, which typically only serve the main destinations, it said.
But competition in the regional connecting markets has also been intensifying as MAS and SIA have been increasing their focus on such markets. Southeast Asian LCC groups are also starting to aggressively pursue more transit traffic between Australia and Asia.
The carrier currently operates 38 weekly flights to Australia including 14 to Melbourne, 10 to Sydney, and seven each to Brisbane and Perth.HANOI, 16 October 2015: Vietnam will discount visa fees for foreign travellers as well as overseas Vietnamese, starting 23 November, to boost international arrivals.
Tuoi Tre News quoted a Ministry of Finance statement, saying the single-entry visa will cost USD25 instead of the current USD45. The fee for multiple-entry visas, with validity of less than three months, will be reduced from USD95 to USD50.
Foreigners will still have to pay USD95 for a multi-entry visa valid for more than three months, but less than six months. The fee is USD135 for a visa valid for six months up to a year. The fee for a one to two years visa is USD145, and from two to five years, USD155.
inside no 3For tourists who enter Vietnam and then travel to Laos and Cambodia, and subsequently return to Vietnam, the visa fee is USD5 instead of the current USD45. The big reduction should encourage more travellers to use Vietnam as a gateway to Mekong Region neighbours.
Starting 1 July, citizens from the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Spain and Italy were granted visa exemptions to visit Vietnam for up to 15 days. That particular waiver applies for one year.
The visa exemption for Belarus also started 1 July, valid until 2020.
Vietnam also offers visa-free travel to seven countries; Japan, South Korea, Norway, Finland, Denmark, Sweden, and Russia.
It also has a visa-free policy for nine ASEAN countries; Brunei, Myanmar, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore, and the Philippines.
The country will allow foreigners married to Vietnamese, resident in the country or overseas, visa-free entry effective 15 November.
It should encourage more than 4.5 million Vietnamese, who are working and living outside Vietnam, to return home on holidays more frequently by easing entry procedures.
Vietnam is making the effort to win back foreign visitors, after international arrivals dropped continuously for 13 months from May 2014.
For January to September, this year, the country welcomed 5,689,512 international tourists down 5.9% over the same period last year.

sourced:ttrweekly.com