“How can Vietnam possibly improve its image in the eyes of global tourists when even local tour guides are obsessed with its shortcomings, especially the polluted environment?” an industry insider wonders.

“One of my tour guides once had a dream in which he had to take tourists through a pile of garbage, and had to collect the rubbish strewing the rivers in the Mekong Delta,” Phan Xuan Anh, chairman of Du Ngoan Viet Co., wrote in a piece sent to Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper.

Anh recalled many experiences he has witnessed during 30 years of working in the tourist industry in the op-ed, saying these are small shortcomings that eventually result in huge damage for Vietnamese tourism.

View full script here