After facing declining tourist numbers for 12 consecutive months, Vietnam is now aiming to fix this problem by rolling out a visa exemptions scheme.

Vietnam has already granted visa exemptions to visitors from Russia, Japan, South Korea, Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Finland. (Strangely, they are set to expire in 2019.) And ASEAN members already enjoy this privilege, which may sound obvious but don't forget Thais still need visas to visit Burma.

Vietnamese tourism officials are also lobbying their government for Australia, Canada, France, Germany, India, Italy, New Zealand, Spain, and the UK to be exempt. But no USA as of now.

Tourism represents 6 percent of Vietnam's gross domestic product. Q1 2015, visitors dropped by 3.3 million, a 12.9 percent plunge compared to the same period of last year. May was even worse. There's the collapse of the Russian ruble and growing tension with China over the South China Sea islands.

So here's another way to look at it: now's the perfect time to visit.