Good news for all tourism boats in Ha Long Bay: the new policy to repaint white color to all these boats has recently been clarified; no longer are they required to cover their whole appearance in white. Boats and cruises are required to have at least some white paint color on the skin, without any specification how much white is acceptable. Tourist boats are also granted permission to diversify their own painting style to match their current conditions.

The previous statement about whitening all boats in Ha Long Bay has met with widespread dissent and objections from boats owners and travel agencies currently operating cruises ships in Ha Long Bay. Meanwhile, brown is still the preferred and main color when white plays the role of marginal decoration only.