llegal foreign tourist guides uncontrollable in Vietnam Even though foreigners are banned from providing tourist guide services for foreign visitors to Vietnam, many are still openly operating at many localities across the country, worrying tourism managers.   Illegal Chinese tourist guide leading a foreign tourist delegation in Hoi An City Under Vietnam’s Law on Tourism which took effect from January 1, 2006, those who are licensed as a tourist guide must have Vietnamese nationality and live in Vietnam. However, recently, many foreign people have been illegally providing the services at many tourist sites around the country. The situation is said to have been a result of the country’s serious lack of skilled tourist guides and loose management. Due to the lack of skilled tourist guides, operations of illegal foreign tourist guides have been thriving and recently become uncontrollable in the central coastal province of Khanh Hoa. An anonymous official from the provincial Relic Conservation Centre said Russian and Chinese tourist delegations coming to the province are often guided by foreigner. Such operations are especially popular around the Po Nagar, a Cham temple tower in Nha Trang City. Local authorities, however, admitted that they find it hard to deal with them due to language barrier. Many foreign tourist guides are also widely and openly operating along streets in Nha Trang City. They offer the services at only from USD15-USD20 each. They arrange cars and take foreign tourists out of the province as well. The same situation is also recorded in Danang City and the central province of Quang Nam. Chinese tourist delegations are often guided by a Chinese person. Tran The Dung, Deputy Director of the HCM City-based The He Tre Travel Company said several international travel firms often hire a Vietnamese tourist guide as a way to make it legal to local authorities while they illegally allow foreign tourist guides to instruct foreign visitors. Worries “It’s dangerous if we are not timely deal with operations of illegal foreign tourists in Vietnam who may not exactly and fully understand Vietnamese history as well as background of the destinations in the country. Some of them may distort the country’s history and this would affect the national image to foreign people,” an anonymous director of a travel firm in HCM City said. Nguyen Van Thanh, Director of the Khanh Hoa provincial Tourism Promotion Centre said, “If we don’t work out a prompt solution, the aftermath would be really harmful to the national culture.” In order to improve the situation, authorities in several localities have been intensifing inspection and crackdown on illegal operations of foreign tourist guides. Nguyen Duy Quang, chief inspector of the Quang Nam provincial Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism said that last year they detected and fined one South Korean tourist guide for illegal operations. In 2012, they also fined several illegal foreign tourist guides a combined amount of over VND300 million (USD14,201), including five Chinese people and two them were expelled from Vietnam. Authorities in Khanh Hoa Province have also dealt with several cases of illegal operations of foreign tourist guides who mainly came from South Korea, China and Russia. In addition, several localities have been speeding up their plans to provide language training in Russia, Chinese and Korean for local tourist guides. The Khanh Hoa provincial Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism has sent tourism human resource development plan to the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism for approval. Nguyen Van Tuan, Director of the ministry’s Vietnam National Administration of Tourism, advised that localities should temporarily translate information about their destinations into different languages so as to introduce to foreign tourists while urgently training skilled tourist guides. "The ministry has been conducting a programme to support tourist guide training since 2013. They will start implementation in Khanh Hoa Province and Phan Thiet City in the second quarter of this year before expanding to Ninh Thuan, Vung Tau, Phu Yen and Phu Quoc," Tuan added. NLD