Lam Kinh Festival to open in Thanh Hoa Province

The ‘Lam Kinh Festival’ will be held at the Lam Kinh Historical Site in Xuan Lam Commune of Tho Xuan District in Thanh Hoa Province from September 24-26.

The event aims to celebrate the 595th anniversary of the Lam Son insurrection and the 580th anniversary of the death of King Le Thai To.

On this occasion, a ceremony to receive a certificate of national cultural-historical site awarded to the Lam Kinh Historical Site will be organized.

There will be a series of cultural activities such as revival of Lam Son rising up; King Le’s enthronement; exhibition on Lam King architecture; and Thanh Hoa’s development. Many traditional art performances, sporting and tourism activities, folk games will take place during the festival.

Additionally, documentary and feature films on Lam Kinh festival, Lam Kinh historical site and historical persons including Nguyen Thi Lo, Ly Thuong Kiet, and imperial concubine Y Lan will be screened during the festival throughout the province.

Phu Bai airport to reopen this month

The Phu Bai International Airport in the central province of Thua Thien-Hue will be re-opened on September 20 after a five-month upgrade.

The 600 billion VND (28.2 million USD) upgrading project includes the repair of runaway, traffic signals, airfield and terminal.

After its temporary closure, the airport will be capable of receiving mid-size aircraft like Airbus A321 and affording three boarding gates in peak hours.

Under a plan approved by the Government, the Phu Bai airport will be further upgraded to handle 20 airplanes in peak hours and five million passengers a year by 2020.

The re-operation of the airport is good news for the province as it is preparing for the 20 th anniversary of the recognition of the Hue ancient imperial relics as a World Cultural Heritage site on September 21.

Quan Ba welcomes sharp rise in visitor figures

The rural district of Quan Ba in northern border Ha Giang Province has reported a sharp increase in the number of visitors this year, especially in August.

The district, on the China border, has beautiful landscapes and many ethnic minority cultures.

The number of international tourists this year has more than doubled to 2,245.

Swedish Tuy Hoa beach resort opens for business

Scandia International Tourism Village has opened in the central city of Tuy Hoa.

The US$10 million resort has 45 rooms and 12 villas besides beaches, parks and camping grounds.

It facilities include a spa, tennis courts, a supermarket, and entertainment zone.

It is owned by Sweden's Scandia.

Saigontourist unveils autumn-winter domestic tours

Saigontourist Travel Service Company has tied up with airline partners to offer discounted tours during autumn and winter.

Together with VietJet Air, it offers four-day and seven-day tours of Ha Noi, Ninh Binh, Ha Long and Bac Ninh from VND6.89 million (US$320) to VND9.99 million and a five-day Cao Bang-Ban Doc-Nguom Ngao Cave tour from VND7.66 million.

It also offers outbound tours. A 10-day France-Belgium-Netherlands-Germany tour starts at VND59.99 million, VND16 million less than normal.

Its six-, seven-, and nine-day Australia tours start at VND39.99 million, a discount of VND8 million.

There are also tours to Japan, Taiwan and other destinations.

Promoting BinhThuan tourism abroad

More than 50 international reporters and representatives of travel agents from Russia, Germany, France and the US gathered at a meeting to explore BinhThuan’s potential tourism.

Nguyen Thanh Tam, Vice Chairman of the provincial People’s Committee said with nearly 200km of coastline, the province’s tourism sector has great potential for development.

 From a peaceful fishing village, PhanThiet-BinhThuan has become one of the country’s leading marine tourism centres with hundreds of hotels and resorts taking shape. BinhThuan has annually received more than 3 million visitors, including 350,000 foreigners from 90 countries and territories.

Tam said the meeting provided a good chance for the province to promote its image and tourism, and meet with representatives from potential markets.

The provincial Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism together with its tourism businesses, introduced potential investment opportunities and development orientations for the future with the international delegation.

They also discussed issues related to environment, transport and administration procedures and promotion measures to turn Phan Thiet into an “entertainment paradise” for both visitors and investors.

BinhThuan leaders briefed the guests on its policies and incentives for the tourism sector, affirming to create the best possible conditions for investors to run businesses in the locality.

During their stay, from Sept 14-16, the delegation are scheduled to work with tourism services, visit famous sites like Mui Ne, Hoa Thang, Ham Tien, and Tien Thanh and make fact-finding tours of hotels, restaurants, resorts , golf courses and sea sports clubs in the province.

RoK promotes MICE tourism in HCM City

A touring roadshow introducing Vietnamese travel agencies to the Republic of Korea’s (RoK) “Meetings, Incentives, Conferences, and Exhibitions” (MICE) tourism opened in Ho Chi Minh City on September 12.

Organised by the General Department of Korean Tourism, the exhibition focused on travel and tourism conducted in combination with business meetings and conferences.

MICE Director Min Min Hong said the RoK is an internationally renowned destination for this type of tourism. With its 5,000-year history and 10 UNESCO World Heritage Sites, the country’s rich traditional culture is an essential element of its attraction as a conference and business meeting host.

Vietnam National Administration of Tourism Deputy General Director Nguyen Quoc Hung noted the RoK is among Vietnam's largest tourism markets, the point of departure for more than 700,000 of Vietnam’s incoming travelers in 2012.

Vietnam welcomed 504,000 RoK visitors in the first eight months this year, a year-on-year rise of 10%.

Bilateral political, economic, and tourism relationships have multiplied since the two countries established diplomatic ties in 1992.

Hung said he believes tourism promotion programmes introduce each nation’s people to the land, history, and culture of their counterparts, consolidating bilateral friendship.

They are also a valuable opportunity for Vietnamese and Korean enterprises to share experiences and explore potential partnerships.

Viet Nam enjoys boom in Russian visitors

Russia is becoming a key market for the Vietnamese tourism sector following annual growth of around 50 per cent in recent years.

A report at a conference held in HCM City on Thursday on Viet Nam-Russia Tourism Relations said that last year the growth was more than 70 per cent.

In the first seven months of this year, 170,000 Russian visitors arrived in Viet Nam, a surge of 57 per cent year-on-year.

The country targets 250,000-280,000 arrivals from Russia this year.

"We are carrying out an action programme in 2013-15 to attract Russian visitors," Nguyen Quoc Hung, deputy head of the Viet Nam National Administration of Tourism, told the conference.

"With the programme, we hope to receive around 350,000 Russians by 2015 and 1 million before 2020."

A Russian tourism industry executive told the conference that the number of his compatriots visiting Viet Nam would surely continue to increase since there are many Russian service and energy projects planned here.

"Russians have 20 days of holidays a year besides vacations in winter and summer," she said.

"Many of them want to come to Viet Nam since they love seafood, fruits, and the massage in your country."

But there are some issues that stop Russian visitors from coming to Viet Nam.

Language is one among them.

Participants agreed that Viet Nam has a shortage of tour guides and people in the service industry who can speak Russian.

Russian tourists often have difficulties everywhere from airports to hotels as a result.

Participants discussed plans to strengthen tourism relations between the two countries, and it was announced that exhibitions would be organised for this.

They also spoke about exploring Russia for Vietnamese tourists.

Companies from the two countries had the opportunity to meet each other and enhance relations.

They also showcased a number of their tourism products.

Foreign firms captivate travel expo visitors

A couple of Vietnamese travel firms and tourism promotion agencies have bigger display spaces at this year’s International Travel Expo that opened in HCMC’s District 7 on Thursday, but the prominent booths of foreign countries draw the attention of visitors.

The Thailand, Malaysia, Cambodia and South Korea booths were crowded with visitors on the opening day as they staged a lot of art performances and activities to attract visitors.

This is just what the local exhibitors have a hard time doing. Though their booths are more beautiful and larger, they lack exhibitor-visitor interactions.

“I have appointments with some hotels in HCMC this morning but still manage to visit the booths of Malaysia and Thailand which offer many interesting activities,” said a German travel firm executive.

To attract visitors at the expo, foreign tourism promotion agencies made careful preparations.

Before the expo, Malaysia launched Malaysia Tourism Week to introduce events to local firms. Meanwhile, South Korea provided detailed information about South Korea firms attending the expo and activities to local tourists and firms.

Thailand issued a special edition about four major tourism products, including health, golf, green tourism and wedding-honeymoon, and a booklet about Thailand as the Mekong Travel Hub, main destinations and some routes connecting to Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia and Myanmar.

With such careful preparations, local and international visitors are provided with a lot of information before visiting the three-day expo.

This year’s expo does not have the participation of enterprises and promotion agencies from China and Hong Kong while the number of Russian enterprises is not as high as expected.

According to the expo organizers, there are around 7,000 online appointments scheduled. Enterprises on Thursday started meeting partners that made online appointments as well as others at the expo.

The International Travel Expo 2013 themed ‘Five Nations – One Destination’ is organized by the HCMC Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism, the Vietnam National Administration of Tourism, Vietnam National Trade Fair and Advertising Company (Vinexad) and Informa Exhibitions.

The expo is attended by 300 local and foreign travel and transport enterprises, hotels and tourism promotion agencies with 245 booths, up 6% from last year’s expo. Around 180 buyers of international products and 100 travel enterprises specializing in domestic travel are slated to work with partners during the event.

Accor opens 15th hotel in Vietnam

The five-star hotel Pullman Hanoi, the 15th hotel managed by Accor in Vietnam, opened in the capital city on Thursday.

Patrick Basset, Accor’s senior vice president for Vietnam, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and the Philippines, said the hotel was previously named the Hanoi Horizon Hotel and upgraded with a cost of US$15 million. However, this amount is just an initial investment in the process of upgrading the 242-room hotel, he added.

According to Patrick Basset, Vietnam is regarded as a potential market as statistics showed that the number of international tourists coming to Vietnam grew by 12% last year and was forecast to rise by 6% this year.

Accor currently manages 15 hotels, but there are 17 more hotels to be put under its management that are under construction or having their brands changed.

Accor’s long-term strategy is to expand its presence in the market, said Basset.

How Vietnam attracts as the "kitchen" of the world

In Vietnam, every locality has its own specialties. The country strives to introduce its diversified and special cuisine to the world to attract travelers. At table with the VietNamNet Bridge.

A common courtesy statement Vietnamese usually hear from the South Korean actors when they visit Vietnam is "I love pho (noodle soup served with beef or chicken, a Vietnamese traditional dish)".

In the United States and Europe, "pho" has also been the Vietnamese food most mentioned by the people who have been to Vietnam. Only in recent years have the western tourism publications added "nem" (spring rolls) and "banh mi" (bread) into the list of the Vietnamese popular food.

Meanwhile, Vietnam not only has "pho" to introduce to the world.

However, the limited knowledge of foreign travelers about Vietnamese cuisine shows Vietnam’s shortcomings in popularising its specialties.

In Vietnam, every locality, from the north to the central region or the south, has its specialties. Different personalities of local people and different ways of processing allow creating different dishes.

The local residents in coastal provinces use the common material – seafood – for their dishes, but the food tastes differently. Quang Ninh province has been well known for "cha muc" (fried minced cuttlefish), while Hai Phong City people make "nom sua do" (sweet and sour salad with jellyfish) very well.

While Nha Trang City has wonderful dried cuttlefish, Ho Chi Minh City has been famous for sea snails.

The most outstanding feature of the Vietnamese cuisine is that it has two culinary centres with quite different styles, namely Hanoi as the representative of the northern delta, and Hue City – the land of the royal style.

Besides, Vietnam also has the so called "hybrid food style" – or the "street food", which travelers can taste at all the noisy tourist centres like Hanoi, Quang Ninh, Hai Phong in the north, Nha Trang, Da Nang in the central region, or Ho Chi Minh City in the south.

What should Vietnam introduce to the world? "Pho" has been popularised for a long time that it has been automatically considered the Vietnamese traditional food. However, this may not be true when people are not in Hanoi or Ho Chi Minh City.

Therefore, it would be a difficulty for tour guides to talk about the local traditional dishes when they lead tourists to Da Nang City or Khanh Hoa, where "pho" is not the local specialty.

A tourism expert has noted that the tourism promotion campaigns with the focus on popularising "pho" has led to the inaccurate understanding of travelers about the Vietnamese cuisine. Travelers may think that "pho" is typical for the Vietnamese cuisine, and "pho" is everything Vietnam has.

Meanwhile, other special dishes still have not been introduced to travelers.

Hue City, the ancient royal capital, also has many good dishes to offer, from the main courses to desserts, from royal to popular dishes. The culinary art of Hue food is always part of the tours to the city as a cultural value worth of being discovered by tourists.

However, Hue still has not found a dish most typical for the city which it should focus on when running advertisement campaigns.

Nguyen Cong Hoan, Deputy Director of Hanoi Redtour, complained that the firm can only introduce local specialties to small inbound groups of tourists as the infrastructure conditions are not good enough to receive big groups of travelers.