Sa Pa town to launch weekend walking street

To celebrate 110 years of tourism in Sa Pa, the district town's People's Committee has decided to turn Cau May Street into a walking street for tourists.

Located in the town centre, the street will be closed for vehicles every Friday and Saturday. On these days, residents will be allowed to sell souvenirs, brocades, and food along the street. The street is expected to become a special cultural space that tourists from other places and within the country can enjoy.

It is also a place for craftsmen and local residents to promote traditional industries and their cuisine culture.

Discount on Vietnam-RoK flights

The national carrier Vietnam Airlines (VNA) is offering 25–30% discounts on flights to the Republic of Korea (RoK) as part of a VNA and Korea Tourism Organisation (KTO) campaign launched on November 12.

Under the campaign, flights from Vietnam to the RoK departing between November 15, 2013 and March 31, 2014 will be eligible for the discounts (excluding the Lunar New Year holiday). The KTO’s Hanoi office wants to see a 20% improvement in Vietnamese tourist numbers from 2012’s benchmark.

The VNA and KTO will also cooperate on organising the 2013 Korea Travel Awards.

Vietnam Airlines Northern Regional Office Deputy Director Le Kim Anh said the two countries boast huge potential for lucrative tourism cooperation.

Da Lat to offer free wifi starting in December

Lan Dong Province's Department of Information and Communications is preparing a project that will make Da Lat City a wifi hotspot. The VND6 billion (US$285,000) project is expected to become operational in mid-December, just in time for the city's culture tourism week.

The wifi service will be offered for free at first, but later it will only allow free access to several province's websites.

VietJet Air opens HCMC-Quy Nhon route

Low-cost carrier VietJet Air has launched a new route from Ho Chi Minh City to Quy Nhon, offering more than 2,500 seats on seven round-trips per week since November 9.

Currently, the budget carrier VietJetAir is operating 500 flights per week, with a route network across 14 cities and provinces in the country and international flights to Thailand, Cambodia, and Korea.

Viet JetAir received another A320 Sharklet aircraft from leading aircraft manufacturer in Toulouse in France on October 29.

The first Airbus aircraft landed in Vietnam in September. These planes will take part in a charity activity organized by Pepsico Vietnam to carry disadvantaged students and workers back home to enjoy Tet holiday with their families.

Viet JetAir has now raised the total number of planes to 10.

Central Quang Nam pursues sustainable tourism

The central province of Quang Nam has set a target of developing sustainable tourism associated with the preservation and promotion of cultural values so it can better contribute to local economic growth. Report by the Vietnam Economic News.

In the first three quarters of 2013, Quang Nam received 2.6 million tourists, a rise of 19.32 percent compared with the same period last year; revenue from tourism reached over 1.23 trillion VND (57.81 million USD), up 25.9 percent. Its initial efforts to promote sustainable tourism development have brought in satisfactory results.

In the period under review, the ancient city of Hoi An alone received 1.3 million tourists, an increase of 22.9 percent compared with the same period last year. It had intensified the dissemination of tourism information while at the same time concentrating on tourism promotion activities and diversifying the sources of investment in tourism in order to improve the quality of tourist services, especially those in the Cham islands.

Investment in the construction of tourism infrastructure and tourist sites as well as the restoration of world heritage sites has been promoted. With five tourism projects officially coming into operation in the first nine months of 2013, Quang Nam province currently has 123 accommodation facilities with 5,153 rooms. These include four five-star hotels, 11 four-star hotels and 11 three-star hotels.

Quang Nam has reopened some beaches, put Cua Dai port into stable operation and promoted tourism development in the Cham islands. As a result of these efforts, in the first nine months of 2013, Quang Nam welcomed more than 165,000 visitors to the islands, a rise of over 60,000 visitors compared with 2012 as a whole (the islands received an average of 2,500 visitors each day).

Many community and ecological tourism development projects have been developed here. The number of travel companies offering tours to Cua Dai-Cham islands has by now increased to 40 from seven in late 2012. Beside these, 15 companies provide dining services and 50 provide accommodation services in the form of homestay tourism.

According to Quang Nam Culture, Sports and Tourism Department Director Dinh Hai, the provincial tourism sector is drafting a tourism development plan to get ready to welcome a wave of investment in the field of community and ecological tourism; at the same time, the sector is intensifying communications to improve local people’s awareness about sustainable tourism development.

Classes have been opened to provide training for residents in areas around eco-tourist sites such as Cam Thanh, Cham islands and Tra Nhieu so that they can know how to properly receive and serve tourists; some workshops were organised to discuss the conservation of water coconut forests in Cam Thanh commune; Tran Phu street in Hoi An has been chosen to be built as a “Global Citizen Street” that meets some criteria in such terms as heritage protection, green space protection, waste classification according to 3R (reduce-reuse-recycle) principles, and boycotting plastic bags.

Quang Nam province is concentrating on developing community eco-tourism in Tra Nhieu village, Duy Xuyen district, tours to the Bay Mau coconut forest in Hoi An, the Loc Yen eco-village in Tien Phuoc district, adventure tourism and tours to Bhoong village in Dong Giang district.

To promote sustainable tourism development and become a tourist center for the central region, Quang Nam province has requested the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism to provide it with assistance to develop tourism infrastructure through ODA-funded projects such as building the tourism infrastructure for Hoi An, the Cu Lao Cham Biosphere Reserve, My Son sanctuary, Tay Vien hot mineral stream, coastal areas in the city of Tam Ky, and a human resources training project.

Attractive destination for Japanese tourists

The Viet Nam National Administration of Tourism has worked with the Japan National Tourism Organisation to review tourism cooperation between the two sides.

During the 2003-2012 period, Japanese tourist arrivals to Viet Nam increased 2.75 folds, with an average growth rate of 12 percent per annum.

In 2012 alone, they made up 9 percent of all foreign visitors to Viet Nam. In the first ten months of 2013, nearly 500,000 Japanese visited the country, a year-on-year rise of 5.6 percent.

Head of the Viet Nam National Administration of Tourism Nguyen Van Tuan said the Vietnamese tourism industry sees Japan as one of its top markets, which also included the Republic of Korea and China.

Viet Nam's strategy on tourism development to 2020 with a vision towards 2030 determined Japan as a key market, expecting to receive 1 million Japanese tourists by 2015.

Source: SGT/SGGP/VNA/VNS/VOV/ND