The visa situation is another area where problems and uncertainties abound. Retired Asian Studies professor Ben Kerkvliet recently went to board a Cathay Pacific flight to Hanoi in order to attend a conference where he was scheduled to present a paper. To his surprise and chagrin, the airline staff refused to accept his letter from a visa-on-arrival (VOA) service as proof that he would be allowed into the country. (Online companies currently offer the VOA service, so many travelers choose it for the convenience.) They showed him an embassy letter instructing them to disregard such visa approval letters and only except visas obtained at a Vietnamese embassy. Kerkvliet was forced to miss his flight and skip the conference, even though he had used the visa-on-arrival service several times in the past with no problems. At present, it is unclear what document is needed for a tourist to enter the country – is a VOA obtained online enough, or does one need to visit an embassy, pay 45 dollars and have a visa stamped in one’s passport? Some people speculate that this crackdown on VOAs is taking place because the embassies want to claw back lost revenues – in other words, bureaucratic infighting is to blame. Whatever the cause, a recent report by the Vietnam Business Forum noted that “with the exception of Myanmar, Vietnam is the only country in Southeast Asia where visitors from major tourist nations… still have to go through a pre-approval process before traveling.” In Cambodia, Thailand and almost anywhere else in ASEAN, a tourist staying for less than 30 days is granted visa-free entry. It’s true that progress has been made for some visitors, as visa-free entry for ASEAN nationals is now in place. However, much more needs to be done. Instead of enticing tourists to visit with one hand and squeezing money out of them for visa fees with the other, a unified policy is needed.