Firms blast draft plan that obliges tour drivers to speak English

Two Vietnamese ministries are considering forcing local drivers to be able to communicate in English with the tourists behind their seats, but tourism and transportation firms do not seem supportive of the plan.

The Ministry of Culture, Sports, and Tourism has collaborated with its transport counterpart to draft a circular to regulate the transportation of tourists by car.

The ministries have suggested that tour guides and drivers of tourism firms take professional training courses, including English communication skills, every three years, according to an undated copy of the document obtained by Tuoi Tre News.

The trainees will also cover such content as general knowledge of Vietnamese tourism, reception skills, etiquette, and the customs and traditions of tourists, during the courses.

The programs will run no more than five days for those who are training the first time, and two days at most starting from the second time. Trainees will sit for tests to get certificates from the Ministry of Culture, Sports, and Tourism at the end of the training programs.

The draft joint circular also sets a suggested training plan to get drivers to speak English.

It says the tour guides and drives must be able to “introduce themselves, the jobs they are doing, and the companies they work for” in English.

Their English must be fluent enough to listen to, understand, and answer questions about such information as “weather, foreign exchange rates, and directions to the post office, healthcare and insurance facilities, shopping and entertaining places, and foreign affairs offices.”

The draft document was issued late last year and the two ministries are still pooling feedback from tourism and transportation firms, according to The Saigon Times Online.

The proposal, however, has been greeted with negative comments.

The Saigon Times Online quoted many businesses as saying that a driver must be fluent in English, rather than only being able to say hello and goodbye in the language, to be able to meet all criteria proposed in the draft circular.

Such requirements are thus stringent and unnecessary, they criticized.

“There is always a tour guide on buses that carry tourists, so the driver does not necessarily need to be an English speaker,” the Ho Chi Minh City-based newswire quoted Nguyen Thi Hoa Le, general director of Hoa Binh Co., a tour operator, as saying.

The company has a large fleet of tourist buses in Ho Chi Minh City.

Besides the English speaking issue, the draft circular also includes other requirements that have failed to win agreement from businesses.

For instance, it suggests that vehicles used to transport tourists should not be in service for more than 15 years, a requirement Le said is unreasonable and wasteful.

“If an automobile undergoes regular maintenance, it can run well and safely for even 20 years,” she told The Saigon Times Online.

“In other countries 25-year-old vehicles are still used to serve tourists, and it’s a waste if we only set a 15-year limit for automobiles in Vietnam.”