Responding to VnExpress , Mr. Xuan Minh, director of a travel company specializing in outbound (foreign travel), said the company had a group of 30 tourists whose visas were denied by China.

The group planned to travel on the Shanghai - Hangzhou - Suzhou - Wuzhen - Beijing route, departing from Hanoi on October 13. On the morning of October 2, when he received the results of the group's visa rejection, Mr. Minh was surprised because he had planned ahead to avoid departing during Golden Week, the most important holiday in China of the year, which this year lasted 8 days from September 29 to October 6, one day longer than usual because the Mid-Autumn Festival and National Day were close together.

"We lost the deposit to the airline, the money to apply for group visas for the guests and the cost of advertising the tour," said Mr. Minh, adding that the main reason the group was "failed" was because the visa application time was close to Golden Week.

Having experience in developing Chinese tourism products since 2016, Mr. Minh understands that Golden Week is always a "sensitive" time to apply for a visa for Chinese tourist groups. However, the company still sells tours because the Chinese partner informed that visas for tourist groups are still issued normally and services are not disrupted much.

Similarly, Mr. Thanh Tung, communications director of a Hanoi-based travel agency, said the company also "failed" a group traveling on the Shanghai - Hangzhou - Suzhou - Wuzhen - Beijing route, departing from Hanoi during Golden Week.

Although the group visa application was rejected, the company switched to applying for individual visas (visa stickers) and was successful, so the group departed on schedule. However, each tourist must pay the difference in fees when applying for a visa sticker. Normally, the price for a group visa is about 30-60 USD per person, while a visa sticker is 120-125 USD per person.

"The Chinese side did not reject all group visa applications during Golden Week. They just did not accept guests at some border gates and some places that required visa stickers such as Lijiang and Beijing," said Mr. Tung.

Mr. Tung said that on some previous occasions (Golden Week, military parade, China's National Day), the company often received notices from partners or private sources about "restricting visa applications during sensitive periods". After this period, everything returned to normal. However, this year, Mr. Tung's company did not receive any notices, so he understood that visa applications would not be an obstacle.

Vietluxtour said there were four groups going to China in October. Among them, the itinerary of a group of 20 people going to Phoenix Ancient Town will be cut short by a few days to coincide with Golden Week, although the group will still be granted visas. A representative of the company said they were informed by their partners that groups entering Shanghai need to prepare visa procedures earlier and "may be subject to stricter scrutiny".

Mr. Nguyen Tien Dat, General Director of AZA Travel, said that there are three major holidays that travel companies should avoid taking tourists to China: Labor Day, National Day and Lunar New Year. Of these three occasions, National Day is a "sensitive" time and should avoid applying for visas and organizing groups to go. For the remaining two occasions, companies can still successfully apply for visas for groups if they prepare early.

"I think there are three reasons why a company would still organize a tour to China during Golden Week. The first is lack of experience, the second is recklessness, and the third is accidentally holding a plane ticket but not paying attention to the date," said Mr. Dat.

According to VnExpress , travel agencies with groups traveling to China in October are preparing visa procedures earlier due to the long waiting time for results, about 20 days (normally about 7 days). In addition to Golden Week, China also has a major event during this time, the Canton Fair, the country's largest annual trade fair held in Guangzhou from October 15 to November 4.

Not only tours with passports and visas, China tours with passports are also "temporarily suspended". Ms. Hoang Tuyet, Director of Top One Travel, which specializes in exploiting the Hekou - Jianshui - Pingbian - Mongzi route, said that she has temporarily stopped selling this tour for 8 days during the Golden Week and will only reopen after October 6. The price of tourism services in China during the Golden Week can triple while the partner's staff is not guaranteed.

Ms. Tuyet said that a few agencies still run tours to China using passports because they booked services many months in advance and the holiday surcharge per customer is about 500,000 VND instead of three times the amount if booked close to the holiday. However, the agencies also only guide tours until the end of the Mid-Autumn Festival and have already taken customers out of China on October 1, China's National Day.

This Golden Week is the longest holiday in China since pandemic-related travel restrictions were lifted in December. According to the Civil Aviation Administration of China, 21 million passengers are expected to travel by air during the holiday, with more than 17,000 flights a day, about 80% of them domestic.

Representatives of some travel agencies said that the large number of domestic tourists is also the reason why foreign tourists have "little chance" of coming to China during Golden Week.

Tu Nguyen