National Assembly passed the draft amended Law on Tourism with 89.21% of the votes
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The Law defines clearly prohibited acts. In particular, it is forbidden to cause harm to national sovereignty, national interests, defense, security, social order and safety, cultural traditions, ethics and fine national customs and practices; to abuse the tourism activities to take people abroad or into Vietnam illegally; to damage tourism resources and environment; to discriminate against tourists and making illicit profits from tourists; to scramble for customers or insisting on or forcing customers to purchase goods or services; to run a tourism business without license and registration; to abuse the legal status of other organizations or to allow other persons to use their legal status to do illegal business; to act as a tour-guide without meeting the requirements; to advertise wrongly the status or category of tourist accommodation approved by the competent agencies; to advertise the status or category of tourist accommodation without the approval from the competent agencies, etc.
In terms of the classification of tourist accommodation establishments, the National Assembly agrees with the regulation on classifying the tourist accommodations according to voluntary registration. Accordingly, organizations and individuals offering tourist accommodations are allowed to voluntarily register their categories with responsible governmental agencies. Hotels, tourist villas, tourist apartments, tourist ships are classified according to the national quality standards. The categories include 1 start, 2 stars, 3 stars, 3 stars and 4 stars. The central-level State administrative agencies are responsible for evaluating and classifying tourist accommodations of 4 starts or 5 stars. On the other hand, provincial-level state agencies specializing in tourism are in charge of appraise and classify tourist accommodations of 1 start, 2 stars and 3 stars.
With regard to tourism environment protection, the Law stipulates that Ministries and ministry – level agencies shall, within the scope of their duties and competence, issue regulations in order to protect, enhance and develop tourism environment; People’s committees at all levels shall take measures to protect, enhance and develop the tourism environment in conformity with local conditions; Organizations and individuals doing tourism business must collect and treat wastes discharged during their business operations; remedy negative impacts on the environment caused by their business operations; and take measures to prevent and fight against social evils in their business establishments; tourists, local communities and other organizations and individuals must protect and preserve landscapes, the environment, national cultural identity and fine national customs and practices, and behave in polite and civilized manners in order to promote the image of the country, people and tourism of Vietnam.
On the other hand, regulations on principles of tourism development, tourism development policies, rights and obligations of tourists, tourist products development, online tourism, conditions for recognition as a tourist resort., etc. are also mentioned specifically in the revised Tourism Law.
The revised Law is set to come into effect from January 01, 2018.
