Editor’s Note: Stivi Cooke is an Australian expat based in Hoi An Ancient Town in central Vietnam. He is working as an English language and hospitality teacher in the town. The opinions are his own.

Hoi An’s ancient town streets are bliss to walk in the evenings. The colors relax you, the chatter of kids and families chilling out in the evening air is charming and heartwarming. A great meal in the restaurants overlooking the river and the Christmas tree lantern lighting is a tourism postcard. It’s dreamy, heaven sent after the traffic madness of Hanoi or Ho Chi Minh City, with twinkling waters tranquil and still in the warm coastal air. This is the Vietnam of the tourist magazines and the image most often posted online around the world.

But now there’s trouble in our little slice of paradise.

The recent strict enforcement of a six dollar entrance fee to the old town has spread confusion and some outrage among foreign and domestic tourists alike. For years the ticket system was lightly administered as it was always a question of ‘Are you visiting the historical sites or just walking around?’

Most tourists are ‘walkers’. Although I do agree with the tour operators that some tour groups want to see all the old places and learn their history, the Old Town (in capitals, no less!) is a convenient first point of exploration expanding outwards to the beach, the mountains and the other fascinating aspects of rural life. 

Strolling around is part of what we do. We’re here for the atmosphere. The bustle and chatter of the markets, the tough old ladies in pajamas carrying impossible heavy loads, the colors, the smells, the shapes, the ‘feel’ of the place. So the now very unclear idea of a six dollar ticket centering on the idea of ‘it doesn’t matter if you are walking around or checking out the sites’ is causing unnecessary problems in a town that does well from the simple ability of tourists to just wander around to their heart’s content.

One real issue is it is a badly administered system. 

What’s the value of the ticket for what you get to see? At Angkor Wat, you are definitely paying to visit historical sites – it is not an issue about where you walk or what you do and it is a massive site so the fee reflects the size of looking after the site and making a profit. Hoi An Old Town is tiny and it has two definitions – the ‘historical sites’ and the ‘heritage site’ – everything east of the Japanese bridge to the markets.

There’s another way to look at that the value of the fee price. The Taj Mahal in India at one point charged 12 dollars for foreigners but only 40 cents for locals (per day). The British Museum – a staggering collection – is free. The Grand Canyon can be visited for 25 dollars for seven days…

The system ignores real situations such as coming to town and getting clothes made, which requires people to come back later to check the clothes – should they pay twice simply for the right to do business in town? What happens with people who simply want to enjoy the river views and have lunch – do they pay simply to walk the restaurant? And how do the smaller shops and businesses make money with restricted access to their businesses – what happens to the locals who rely heavily on the tourism trade in Hoi An? Keep in mind, a conservative estimate of 65 percent of Hoi An’s income comes from tourism.

Another issue that has burst is the charging of fees to Vietnamese tourists who, quite rightly, feel it is part of their heritage and culture and pay to walk around though it is unreasonable. It is a remarkable preservation of their 16^th and 17^th culture that has a feeling of still been alive, invaluable to the younger generation brought to Hoi An by their parents – a chance to see a fully intact piece of their nations’ past.  While price may not be an issue as they are tourists, they clearly have enough money to cover these expenses – does the pricing consider domestic tourists popular and devoted loyalty to the Old Town and the future tourism they will bring?

The next point is pricing and collection. Does anyone really want to harass the tourists? Or be the poor ticket seller pushed into the middle of an issue that they were told to enforce? And what’s the $6 fee to enter Hoi An Old Town for? The sign at the ticket office is poorly translated into English and does not really communicate what the fees contribute to the needs of preservation work. Will it be go fully to the preservation of the Old Town? Certainly the Japanese who have contributed extensively to the preservation of sites around the town will be interested in this as will UNESCO.

Wouldn’t it be easier to charge an extra dollar on the room tax – collected regularly and without any problems from the hotels and homestays? Let’s get rid of the ticket booths and let people roam freely except for some sites that are expensive to take of - it is just an idea but an invisible and reasonable alternative. Another way might be to simply forget the fee and encourage more tourism products around the town – the tax would do the same job as the fee.

Interestingly, the present ticketing idea might backfire against the Old Town but perhaps spread ‘the tourism dollar’ further around Quang Nam. Certainly some businesses in the Old Town will feel the effects of tourist absences soon enough to start complaining.

Finally, I would not blame the ticket sellers for the reaction to the ticket price. They are just employees told to do this. Pushy? Aggressive? Well, they are just the local people with little training in service manners or sufficient English to administer the system properly. It needed more thought, more planning and more warning anyway.

However I do hope there’s a drawing board in the office. It’s time to go back to it…

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