The move comes after the province, home to UNESCO-recognized heritage site Ha Long Bay, has gone 85 days without any community transmission and over a million people aged 18 and above have got at least one dose of a Covid vaccine.

Restaurants, hotels, movie theaters, cruise ships on Ha Long Bay and outdoor activities can resume operations but abide by pandemic prevention measures.

All tourist sites, cruise ships, accommodation facilities and religious sites can only receive residents who have got at least one dose of a Covid vaccine.

All staff at facilities that provide tourism services must have been inoculated with at least one dose of a Covid vaccine and have to be tested regularly.

Quang Ninh authorities also plan to welcome back tourists from outside the province starting this November. In the first phase of this reopening to inter-provincial tourism, it will only receive visitors from northern provinces that have not recorded new community transmissions recorded for 14 consecutive days.

All external visitors to Quang Ninh must be fully vaccinated and furnish a negative PCR test certificate obtained within 48 hours before arrival.

Quang Ninh welcomed 2.6 million tourists in the first nine months of this year, down 56 percent year-on-year and its tourism revenues of VND 5.04 trillion was 60 percent less than the same period last year.

The province had closed its beaches and other attractions in August, suspending tourism activities barely a month after the earlier resumption because the pandemic situation became complicated.

Quang Ninh has recorded only seven cases in the ongoing Covid-19 wave that has infected over 690,000 nationwide since late April.