Announced on Sept. 25 by the Tuyen Quang Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism, it is soliciting public feedback from Nov. 9-18.
The money collected will be used for protecting the environment, managing and promoting the area, and educating the public about the geopark’s heritage.
It will also fund better roads and facilities, making the trip more enjoyable for visitors and improving daily life for local residents.
In recent times, visitor arrivals have been rising by 15-20% a year, straining the provincial budget.
In 2025, the geopark attracted over 2.3 million visitors.
Officials estimate that from 2027 through 2030, they will need VND100 billion a year for conservation and upgrades.
The fee will be collected through hotels and homestays rather than at highway toll booths, a common approach elsewhere in Vietnam that often causes traffic jams.
This method is expected to cover 80-90% of overnight guests.
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An artisan draws beeswax patterns at the Lung Tam Cooperative in Quan Ba Commune. Tuyen Quang, Vietnam. Photo by Hoang Giang |
On average, visitors stay at the geopark for some 2.2 nights. By 2027, Tuyen Quang expects around 2.5 million visitors, with 1.5 million of them paying the fee for a total of VND101.8 billion.
Created in September 2009, the Dong Van Karst Plateau Geopark was recognized as a member of the UNESCO global geoparks network in 2010.
During reviews in 2018 and 2022, UNESCO advised the park to develop independent revenue streams to reduce its reliance on government funding.
Tourism officials said the VND30,000 charge is small compared to a traveler’s average trip cost of VND2.5-4.5 million, excluding airfare and road transport.
Overnight tourist taxes are already standard practice in many famous destinations around the world.
Kyoto, Japan, started charging an accommodation tax in 2018 and raised rates in March this year to between 200 yen (US1.25) and 10,000 yen per night depending on room rates. Venice, Italy, has a similar tax, capped at 5 euros (US$5.54) per night.
Most destinations use this money to preserve their heritage and support local communities.
Back in 2023, authorities approved a similar VND30,000 entrance fee for the geopark, which received mixed reactions from the public.
Tourism officials fear this new overnight fee might face a similar response.