Jetstar adds flights to Da Nang

Jetstar Pacific will add 194 extra flights between Hanoi , Ho Chi Minh City and Da Nang to meet the rising tourist demand of summer peak-time.

The extra flights, which use the Airbus A320, will be available from July 19 until August 31, the airline announced on July 4.

In other good news for customers, as of July 5, the low-cost carrier will offer promotional tickets for flights from Ho Chi Minh City to Buon Ma Thuot (between September 18 and October 3) and Ho Chi Minh City to Hanoi or Ho Chi Minh City to Hai Phong (from August 13 to 27).

Vietnamese caravan begins off-road trip to Tibet and Mount Everest

A Vietnamese caravan set off on a trip of a lifetime heading towards Tibet and Mount Everest base camp on Wednesday.

The caravan includes 23 members driving nine cars and pickups. They are expected to become the third team from the Southeast Asia region to conquer the base camp, which is situated at over 5,000m above sea level, following in the footsteps of teams from Malaysia and Thailand.

The one-month trip will cover a long and strenuous 15,000km starting from HCM City. It's being led by a Mercedes-Benz GLK 300 4MATIC which has been modified to cope with the tough terrain.

Da Nang, Nha Trang popular

The number of tourists visiting two central coastal cities, Da Nang and Nha Trang, has so far risen by 16 per cent and 20 per cent compared with the same period last year, authorities have reported.

In the first half of the year, Da Nang received 400,000 foreign visitors, up by 11.4 per cent year-on-year. The city also received 1.15 million local tourists, a year-on-year increase of 18 per cent.

According to the Da Nang Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism, the city's tourism industry attained revenue of over VND3.6 trillion ($172 million) , up 23.7 per cent over the same period last year.

Da Nang welcomed 53 cruise ships with a total of 60,000 cruise travellers to the city, up 67 per cent over last year.

Flights between Da Nang and Hong Kong, and Wenzhou and Chengdu in China, brought the number of visitors to 117,000, an increase of 94.2 per cent compared with the first half of 2012.

Meanwhile, the number of tourist arrivals to central Khanh Hoa Province in the first six months of the year was estimated at 5.4 million.

According to figures from Khanh Hoa's Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism, the province provided accommodations to 1.4 million visitors, an increase of 20 per cent compared with last year. The figure includes 309,000 foreign travellers, a year-on-year surge of 19 per cent.

In the first half of 2013, the city's tourism sector attained revenue of VND1,484 billion ($70.6 million), a rise of 19 per cent over last year.

The new direct-air services between Khanh Hoa Province and Russia in the past two years resulted in an increase of 50 per cent of Russian visitors.

Russians form a large majority of visitors to Khanh Hoa, contributing over 50 per cent of the revenue of the province's tourism industry.

Hue sets next target

The former imperial city of Hue received 1.5 million visitors in the first half of this year and expects to top that figure in the second half, according to the Thua Thien-Hue Province's Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism.

However, local tour operators and statistics on a monument visit promotion showed a different picture.

The department report said the visitor tally was an increase of 101.8 per cent over the same period last year, one-third of which were foreigners.

It said room occupation levels at accommodation facilities were around 76 per cent. Total revenue from tourism was $57 million.

However, contrary to the department's document, tour operators reported many cancels because of the local airport's closure for eight months, from March to November this year.

Tourists instead landed in Da Nang and thus decided to stay in the city or Hoi An rather than Hue.

Tourist guides revealed visitors were also reluctant to take car tours to Hue because of the hot weather.

Tourism workers were pessimistic about the rest of the year because the airport would be closed until the end of November.

River tours not so popular

One month after the official launch of river tours to some destinations in HCM City and the Mekong Delta, travel firms said the number of tourists booking these tours remained modest as the destinations were not attractive.

At the launch on June 4, Saigontourist Holding Co announced seven main tours and named Saigontourist Travel Service Co, Fiditourist and Saigontourist Restaurant Boat as the main sellers of the tours.

Nguyen Viet Hung, general director of Fiditourist, said travellers were not familiar with these new tours, which did not offer sufficiently scenic attractions that satisfied customers.

On the other hand, Doan Thi Thanh Tra, marketing manager of Saigontourist Travel Service Co, said it was hard to assess the tours in the current low season for foreign travel to Viet Nam.

He said that more promotions could produce long-term success.