Hoi An to celebrate record tourist numbers with NYE party

The ancient city of Hoi An will host the 1.6th million foreign tourist visiting central Quang Nam Province during a New Year's Eve party on December 31.

Street performances, a carnival, dance and fashion show will light up the town on that night.

The city will also welcomes its first tourists of 2014 on New Year's Day at the Japanese Bridge.

According to Quang Nam Provincial Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism, more than 1.6 million foreign visitors arrived in the province in 2013, a year-on-year increase of 19 per cent and equivalent to a full 20 per cent of the country's total foreign arrivals.

The department said the total number visitors, including domestic, was up 21 per cent to 3.4 million.

In 2013 Quang Nam continued to make efforts to develop tourism services, offering new products such as tours to ethnic minority villages.

It plans to start more tours to beautiful sites to meet the increasing demand.

The province has 170 hotels and guesthouses with 5,300 rooms, including four five-star, 13 four-star, and 11 three-star hotels.

Southern Province unveils new plans to boost tourism sector

The People's Committee of the southern province of Ba Ria-Vung Tau said that from this year it would choose a day to mark "Con Dao Day" to further advertise and develop tourism to the island.

It plans to invest more to improve infrastructure such as roads and markets and start a Vung Tau-Con Dao express boat service. Work on tourism projects will also be speeded up.

In 2020-30 Con Dao plans to develop ecological tourism, luxury tourism services, and historical tours.

Con Dao is situated around 97 nautical miles from Vung Tau and 120 nautical miles from HCM City.

Its 16 islands are famous for beautiful beaches and historic sites.

In 2013 it attracted nearly 90,000 visitors, a 9 per cent increase year-on-year, including 19,000 foreigners.

By 2020 it expects to receive 150,000 visitors, more than a third of them from abroad.

Singapore Airlines launches direct flights to Da Nang

Singapore Airlines will begin direct flights to the central city of Da Nang starting in the second quarter of next year. An existing service between the two places now goes through Siem Reap in Cambodia.

The carrier also plans to increase the number of flights between Ha Noi and Singapore next year.

It will begin operating Airbus A330-300 aircraft between Singapore and HCM City from January 1, 2014 as part of efforts to improve services on the sector.

To mark this, the airline is offering promotional fares in economy and business class from Viet Nam for tickets bought between December 4 and January 5.

Over the past five years, the central province of Quang Binh has created a new image on Vietnam’s tourism map and become a favourite destination of foreign tourists. Vietnam Economic News explains what has made Quang Binh such a popular tourist destination.

Quang Binh has 116.04 km of coastline with a diverse terrain including plains, mountains, rivers and lakes, the sea, islands and caves, providing the full range of natural environments that can be found throughout Vietnam.

Phong Nha-Ke Bang has been recognised as a UNESCO World Heritage site thanks to it being home to the world’s biggest cave dating back more than 400 million years. The complex includes over 300 large and small caves such as Son Doong, Phong Nha, Thien Duong (Paradise), En (Swallow) and Tu Lan caves.

Over recent years, Quang Binh Province has mobilised resources to prioritise investment in tourism infrastructure such as roads, electricity supplies, wharfs, airports, clean water and medical care. Tourist accommodation has been built and upgraded. Many new tours have been put into operation and obtained initial positive results such as Sinh Ton valley – Thuy Cung cave, Rao Thuong natural tourism discovery – Swallow cave, Chay river – Dark cave, and Tu Lan and Son Doong caves.

The exploration of Son Doong cave discovery tour costs 3,000 USD per person, but despit the cost a large number of domestic and foreign tourists have registered to take in its wonders, with over 400 tourists having already booked the tour for 2014 and 2015.

Some 20 km from Phong Nha on the Ho Chi Minh City Highway to the west, Paradise Cave after receiving hundreds of billions VND in investment has become a paradise in the true sense of the word, attracting hundreds of thousands of domestic and foreign tourists each year.

With such a large tourist potential, in 2013 Quang Binh tourism industry has attracted 1.2 million visitors, a year-on-year increase of 15 percent. Among them, the foreign tourists totaled 36,700, up 23 percent, earning revenue of 1.2 trillion VND.

Apart from diverse potential, the success of Quang Binh tourism was attributed to the efforts of functional agencies to implement tourism promotion programs such as organising tourism promotion conferences in Ho Chi Minh City, Thailand and Australia, introducing tourism products in Cambodia; connecting tourism activities between the north central provinces; conducting surveys on tourist destinations in Quang Binh; promoting tourism on the East West Economic Corridor and promoting international cooperation in tourism with ASEAN countries, the Republic of Korea and Japan.

In 2014, Quang Binh sets a target to attract 1.3 million visitors, including 40,000 foreign tourists, and earning revenue of 1.3 trillion VND. At the same time, it strives to gradually transform provincial tourism into a spearhead of the local economy. According to Deputy Director General of the Vietnam National Tourism Administration Nguyen Manh Cuong, to realise these objectives, the connection of tourism activities between Quang Binh and the northern province is an important measure to boost the development of the sector.

Deputy Director of the Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism of Quang Binh Nguyen Van Ky said also in 2014, the key connection orientation of Quang Binh tourism is Hanoi and the northern provinces, where there are tourist companies organising tours to Quang Binh and Phong Nha - Ke Bang (accounting for the highest percentage in recent times) in particular.

In addition, Quang Binh tourism industry will also focus on implementing measures such as making continued efforts to innovate and draft mechanisms to attract investment in tourism, developing tourism products and infrastructure, strengthening regional links, promoting international cooperation and tourism promotion and expanding tourism markets to attract more visitors with priority given to the domestic market, the northeast region of Thailand, Laos and other traditional markets.

Quang Binh tourism remains as a potential gold mine. It is expected that with enthusiasm and dedication of businesses in the Quang Binh tourism sector and Vietnam tourism in general, Quang Binh will become a tourist hotspot.

Crowds flock to ancient Hue imperial city

The golden tourism week with big discounts to attract tourists to the ancient imperial city of Hue , the central province of Thua Thien-Hue , which closed on December 30, is a big success, according to the Hue Monuments Conservation Centre.

During the week, the site welcomed nearly 30,000 tourists, including 21,300 foreigners.

The week brought in revenue of 2.2 billion VND, bringing the total revenue from entrance tickets to 126.2 billion VND, a year-on-year increase of 20.6 percent.

Over 2 million tourists come to Hue each year, raking in more than 100 billion VND (4.7 million USD) for the local tourism sector. The complex of royal palaces and tombs was recognised by U NESC O as a world cultural heritage in 1993.

Earlier, the Hue Monuments Conservation Centre and the Thua Thien-Hue provincial Tourism and Hotel Associations held a meeting on December 29 to exchange views on how to uphold the values of relics in the imperial city to attract tourists.

According to Doctor Phan Thanh Hai, Director of the centre, the agency offered such services as souvenir shops, tram cars, horse carriages, art performances in Dai Noi (the citadel’s inner city), and Minh Mang, Tu Duc and Khai Dinh mausoleums between 2003-2013, bringing in revenue of 61.5 billion VND which was used for preservation work.

Participants warned against the commercialisation of the relic, and stressed that beside State investment, other sectors should be encourage to get involved in providing good services for visitors.

Individuals and organisations involving in the tourism sector promised to cooperate with the province in preserving the relics.

The centre fulfilled its target of receiving 2 million visitors to the city on December 24.

2014 National Tourism Year to feature Central Highland culture

Festivals, exhibitions, art performances and film screenings on the Central Highland culture are among events to be held during the 2014 Central Highlands-Da Lat National Tourism Year.

Departments of Culture, Sports and Tourism of the five Central Highland provinces announced on December 28 that the national tourism year, themed “High Mountains and Thick Forests of the Central Highlands”, will also feature sports activities, culinary festivals and tours.

Da Lat city in Lam Dong province, where the fifth Culture and Tourism Week is underway, will host 23 out of the 37 events exclusively designed for the year.

The city will be busy from now to the end of 2014 with a broad range of activities such as festivals in February, a cross-country run launched by the Tien Phong (Vanguard) newspaper in March, a Vietnamese film week in June and the second international gong festival in December, among others.

Lam Dong province has developed six tours for the national tourism year, offering holiday-makers chances to explore the beauty of forests, mountains, streams and waterfalls as well as the life of local ethnic groups.

The 2014 National Tourism Year will also help domestic and foreign businesses operating in the tourism sector step up their cooperation and effectively exploit tourism potential of each locality as well as the region which include Lam Dong, Dak Nong, Dak Lak, Gia Lai and Kon Tum provinces.

VNA/VNS/VOV