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In order to attract tourists to Quang Ninh, on December 9, 2021, local leaders agreed to reduce entrance fees to Ha Long Bay, the provincial museum, and the Yen Tu historical site by 50%. The fee reduction will last until June 30, 2022.
Accordingly, there is only about a week left until the end of the discounted entrance fee to Ha Long Bay. The current discounted prices will revert to the original rates: for daytime tours, routes 1, 2, and 5 will cost 250,000 VND per person; routes 3 and 4 will cost 200,000 VND per person.
For visitors staying overnight on the bay, the ticket price ranges from 500,000 to 750,000 VND per person, depending on the route and length of stay.
From July 1st, entrance fees to Ha Long Bay will increase again.
The director of a company specializing in selling tours and vouchers for Halong Bay cruises said that their unit had just received a notification from a cruise company in Halong. The company stated that, according to the latest official document dated June 14th from Quang Ninh province, the entrance fee would increase again from July 1st. Due to unforeseen circumstances, the cruise company wants tour operators to inform the tour group on July 4th that an additional surcharge will be applied, representing the amount that would have otherwise been reduced.
"Our company has signed a contract with the shipping company, and the price is fixed. This isn't just this group; there are many, up to several hundred people. Now, asking us to charge extra is very difficult and unacceptable," the company director shared.
Furthermore, hundreds of overnight cruise vouchers, worth billions of VND, were sold by businesses since 2021 at the old price (with reduced Ha Long Bay sightseeing fees). Now that the fees have increased again, businesses cannot charge customers extra. Travel agencies and agents can only collect fees for new bookings.
The Ha Long Bay Management Board recently sent a document to the Quang Ninh Department of Tourism requesting that the tourism stimulus policy, effective from July 1st, not be implemented anymore. Mr. Nguyen Tien Dung, Head of the Management Board, explained that the stimulus program had a positive and timely impact on Quang Ninh's tourism activities.
After the province reopened to tourists, the number of visitors to Ha Long Bay increased sharply. On peak days, the number of tickets sold reached 28,244. The cumulative number of tickets sold from the beginning of the year to June 12th reached nearly 614,000.
The Ha Long Bay Management Board has requested the Quang Ninh Department of Tourism to agree with the Board to cease advising on and proposing policies to stimulate tourism and will not reduce the entrance fee to Ha Long Bay in the near future.
According to the Quang Ninh Department of Tourism, in the first five months of the year, the province welcomed over 4.2 million visitors, an increase of 79% compared to the same period in 2021; total revenue from tourism reached over 8,800 billion VND, exceeding the target by 8%.
