Guiding principle

From WIRE REPORTS

            One recent June day, a group of more than 40 foreign tourists listened attentively as their tour guide provided them with information, answered questions and led them to several sites in Sai Gon.

            They group visited the War Remnants Museum, Historical Museum, Sai Gon Zoo and Botanical Gardens, and the Notre Dame Cathedral.

            The guide was very active and efficient and even helped visitors buy souvenirs from vendors near the city’s post office.

            If he was not doing all this, he would have looked like a tourist himself.

            Meanwhile, a young Vietnamese man quietly accompanied the group doing nothing.

            In fact, he was the official tour guide, available to show his name tag whenever needed.

            Viet Nam’s Tourism Law prohibits foreigners from working as tour guides. However, the lack of skilled and competent Vietnamese tour guides has prompted many travel agents to illegally employ foreigners.

            Some industry insiders and experts say this could prove to be a big problem, especially because foreign guides lacking sufficient knowledge of Vietnamese culture and history could provide a distorted image of the country.

            According to the 2005 Tourism Law, “international” tour guides (tour guides for international tourists visiting Viet Nam) must be Vietnamese citizens with a bachelor’s degree or higher.

            Many travel agents have complained about the dearth of qualified guides for international tourists, especially during peak season.

            “The Spanish-speaking, Japanese- and Korean-speaking markets have much fewer qualified Vietnamese guides, so I do believe to deter them from encouraging package tourism to Viet Nam would be a huge loss [to the industry],” said Cameron Walters, the manager of a tourism firm based in Sai Gon.

            Walters claimed that most licensed tour operators tend to hire foreigners to cover groups of six to eight paying guests. Most of the time, he said, they hire a local guide to comply with the law.

            “This is about taking care of the guests, it gives them a ‘cushion’ against culture shock and the comfort that they have ‘one of their own’ alongside them,” he wrote via email.

            According to the Viet Nam National Administration of Tourism, more than 6 million international visitors came to Viet Nam in 2011, about 20 percent more than the previous year. Nearly 2.5 million people visited Viet Nam in the first quarter of this year, a 23 percent increase over the same period last year.

            Meanwhile, there are only around 6,000 tour guides qualified to guide foreign visitors, half of whom only have temporary licenses because they don’t meet all the requirements.

            Given the paucity of trained tour guides who are fluent in foreign languages, both foreign and local travel agents say they must choose between refusing bookings or employing foreign guides.

            Many Vietnamese tour guides said they know many foreign guides who are hired on a per-job basis.

            “They are abundant, especially Koreans. Many Chinese tour guides can be seen in Ha Noi and northern provinces,” a Sai Gon-based tour guide said.

            But, some foreign guides argue, Viet Nam’s playing the same game.

            “Vietnamese tour guides lead groups to Thailand every day,” Walters said.

Serious consequences

            Nguyen Van My, the director of the Sai Gon-based Lua Viet Travel Agency, said hiring of foreign tour guides could have serious consequences.

            He said that apart from foreign travel agencies hiring their own guides and having them accompanied by legal Vietnamese guides, there are foreigners operating illegally in Viet Nam without registering with Vietnamese authorities.

            “It makes the local tourism industry chaotic,” he said. “The government cannot collect relevant taxes.”

            Walters agreed. Given the large insurance premiums and licensing fees that legitimate tourism groups pay to do business in Viet Nam, he said, the presence of rogue operators “probably does force a cost issue, pushing wholesale prices downwards, which could affect quality.”

            My said Korean tourism agents used to coordinate with Vietnamese counterparts several years back, but gradually, they have begun organizing tours themselves, employing Korean tour guides at cheaper prices.

            “The government cannot know what foreign tour guides are telling international tourists about Viet Nam. It is totally possible that they cause misunderstandings about Viet Nam’s culture, history and customs,” he said.

            Many foreign tour guides were not paid by travel agents and their income comes from tourists’ tips and commissions from shops they visit, he said.

            “They could take tourists to shops that extort and Vietnamese tourism will suffer,” he said.

            Huynh Ngoc Van, director of the War Remnants Museum in Sai Gon, said she has witnessed many foreign tour guides at the museum: “Of course they cannot introduce our country and people as well as Vietnamese tour guides can.”

Unskilled locals

            The truth, observers say, is that many travel agents are hiring locals with temporary licenses who are not trained to do the job. They have no choice due to high demand and low supply.

            Vu The Binh, deputy chairman of the Viet Nam Tourism Association, said most of more than 8,000 licensed tour guides have not been trained in tourism.

            “Most of them graduated in other subjects and have only taken short-term tourism training courses for a couple of months or so. Within such a short time, they cannot be trained properly in all aspects of their work, from basic knowledge to ethical standards,” he said.

            At the beginning of this summer, the Sai Gon-based Lien Bang Travel Agency had to cancel several bookings from its counterparts in Taiwan, China and Hong Kong because they didn’t have enough qualified tour guides who can speak Chinese.

            Nguyen Viet Anh, chief of the Travel Agents Management Branch under the Sai Gon Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism, said many travel agents in the city have received an increasing number of bookings from abroad, especially from countries where neither English nor French is spoken.

            “Travel agents have recruited people who can speak other languages and provided them with some training in tourism, but it is still insufficient,” he said.

            Recently, a tourism company in Da Nang admitted to using an unlicensed Chinese tour guide after being stopped by tourism authorities in Hoi An.

            The company director said he had no choice. He said he also hired Vietnamese-Thai citizens as tour guide for tourists from Thailand although he was aware that it is illegal to do so.

            Nguyen Truong Son, director of the Trans-Indochina Travel Agent in Ha Noi, said qualified tour guides demand high payment for their services and often modify the tour to earn extra money.

            Those who do not tend to have limited knowledge, he said.

            “Some cannot explain the curved roofs of Vietnamese pagodas. Others cannot answer when tourists ask about farmers planting rice seedlings,” he said.

            Nguyen Van Tuan, director of the Nam Phuc Travel Agency, said companies bring tourists to Vietnam, but it is the tour guides who are able to impress them and influence them into coming again.

            “During the summer, the number of tourists visiting Viet Nam increases drastically, but finding a tour guide with good language and knowledge skills” nearly impossible, according to the director.