International tourists in HCMC (Illustrative photo: SGGP)
Mr. Nguyen Minh Ly, Chief Inspector of Ho Chi Minh City Department of Tourism, said that during the inspection and supervision of the city's tourism industry, inspectors discovered some tour guides using invalid cards, and suspiciously fake cards. Inspectors transferred these cases to police for further handling.
On April 18, the Ho Chi Minh City Department of Tourism held a conference to propagate and disseminate legal documents in the field of tourism in 2022 to businesses including travel companies and hotels, staff in charge of tourism citywide.
According to Mr. Le Truong Hien Hoa, Deputy Director of the HCMC Department of Tourism, the concretization of legal topics and policies through legal education and propaganda plays a very important role.
The conference is a bridge to spread the Party’s policies and laws of the State to the residents, increase the effectiveness of legal documents and raise people’s awareness of legal regulations.
The law dissemination includes Decree No. 45/2019/ND-CP dated May 21, 2019 of the Government on sanctioning of administrative violations in the field of tourism, Decree No. 129/2021/ND-CP dated December 30, 2021 of the Government amending and supplementing a number of articles of the Decrees on penalties for administrative violations in the field of tourism, sport, copyright and related rights, culture and advertising; plus, Circular No. 18/2021/TT-BVHTTDL dated December 31, 2021 of the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism stipulating the statistical reporting regime in tourism activities.
Notably, the tourism industry recently discovered a number of cases of tour guides using fake cards to practice; worse, some tour guides provide false information, even distort history.
Mr. Thai said that inspectors have paid visits to some tourist destinations in the Central City of Da Nang, the South-Central Province of Khanh Hoa, and the Northern Province of Quang Ninh discovering many tour guides using fake cards, especially during the boom of Korean tourists.
