In order to survive and develop, Vietnamese travel firms have to compete fiercely with foreign ones. And in order to lure more foreigners to Vietnam, they need to quickly get adapted to the new circumstances.

Nguyen Van Tran, General Director of Apex Vietnam, said that in 2011, Japan was seriously devastated by tsunami and earthquake. After the natural calamities, a lot of people have the demand to go traveling to relax and treat the mental trauma.

After realizing the demand, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines immediately took actions to attract the potential travelers by waving entry visa for Japanese travelers for 90 days. With the new policy, travelers do not have to spend much time to follow entry-exit procedures and can go immediately to resorts.

At that time, Apex Vietnam sent a dispatch to the Vietnam National Administration of Tourism (VNAT), requesting to apply a new policy on visa waving for 90 days, so that Vietnamese travelers could start their plan to receive the Japanese travelers. However, Apex has not received any replies from the watchdog agencies so far.

Tran said that VNAT should set up a new division in charge of analyzing the socio-economic changes and the new demands of people in other countries in the world, so that Vietnam can lay down timely policies to satisfy the urgent demands of international travelers.

Huynh Ngoc Van, Director of the HCM City War Evidence Museum, said that Vietnam has everything needed to develop the “tourism for peace”. However, the tours of this kind have not been paid attention by domestic travelers.

While Vietnamese travel firms still keep indifferent to the potential tourism products, foreign travel firms have been regularly organizing the tours for peace They know Vietnam is a wonderful destination for these tours, because Vietnam is the country with stories about heroism, war invalids, martyrs, Agent Orange victims, who have been trying to overcome difficulties to live, and the stories about Vietnamese heroic mothers.

According to Van, in 2007, the museum received 380,000 domestic and foreign visitors. The figure rose to 660,000 in 2011, including 450,000 foreign travelers.

People think that historical vestiges are not attractive destinations and that visitors would not return for the second time. However, Van has affirmed she can see the people who came to the museum 6-8 times. When they came there for first time, they just did the sightseeing. When they return the next time, they want to communicate with the war witnesses. Some visitors asked to organize the trips to visit the people who lost relatives in the war or the visits to Agent Orange victims.

Especially, the travelers are not too choosy about accommodations, and they would accept inconvenience to obtain their goals.

Also according to Van, in July and August, the time when travel firms consider the low tourism season, the museum can attract a lot of visitors, especially the ones who book the visits on July 27, the Vietnamese Martyrs and Wounded Soldiers Day and August 10, the Agent Orange Victims’ Day. The travelers would enjoy the tours to visit the families of revolutionary martyrs, to Con Dao Island, where revolutionary soldiers were jailed and to Phu Quoc island together with the war witnesses.