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Vietnam Open Tour News & EventsWEDNESDAY 16 DECEMBER, 2009 |
 Symbol of Hanoi’s 1000th anniversary to appear on Fansipan
The symbol of the Thang Long – Hanoi’s 1000th anniversary will be put on the peak of Fansipan, Vietnam’s highest mountain, as part of the “Returning to Roots 2010” tourism program.
The third Fansipan mountaineering competition will be the climax of “Returning to the Roots 2010”, sponsored by Lao Cai, Yen Bai and Phu Tho in 2010, revealed Bui Thi Kim Dung, Lao Cai’s Vice-Chairperson, in a press conference last week.
This tournament will be held on October 30, 2010 as a national event, attracting nearly 200 climbers, including about 100 foreign mountaineers. Lao Cai and Hanoi will cooperate to bring the symbol of Hanoi’s 1000th anniversary to the top of Mount Fansipan.
The opening ceremony of the “Returning to the Roots 2010” will take place on February 27, 2010 in Lao Cai. A series of festivals will be organized in the three provinces, including Thuong Temple Festival, Festival on Clouds in Sapa, the Bac Ha traditional horse-race festival in Lao Cai, Dong Cuong and Dai Cai temple festivals in Yen Bai, the Muong Lo culture-tourism week in Yen Bai, the Au Co and Tru Mat Temple Festival and the ten day Hung Kings’ Temple Festival in Phu Tho.
The “Returning to the Roots 2010” tourism program is headed by Lao Cai province. In 2009 Lao Cai welcomed over 700,000 visitors, 5 percent over 2008, earning over 500 billion dong ($29.4 million) in revenue.
PV - vietnamnet
Room rates will not see big change in 2010: hoteliers The national tourism department issued a document asking the national tourism association to stabilize hotel room rates while hotels say they made only slight room rate increases for 2010.
The VNAT said it launched the request after receiving complaints that many hotels had decided to raise their rates despite commitments to cut prices. Under the document, the Vietnam National Administration of Tourism (VNAT) said it launched the request after receiving complaints that many hotels had decided to raise their rates despite commitments to cut prices. This situation would result in unstable hotel room rates and loss of prestige of the country’s tourism. To resolve the situation, VNAT has asked the Vietnam Tourism Association to encourage hotels to continue abiding by terms and conditions in the Impressive Vietnam promotion campaign to attract foreign travelers to the country. VNAT also said the association would combine with administrative departments to punish hotels that break the agreement. However, hotel operators said a room rate hike was tentative for 2010 only, and any rate increase must be accepted by partners. Nguyen Thi Xuan Hong, manager of the Vien Dong Hotel, said the hotel had wanted to raise rates for new contracts for 2010 and was sending announcements to partners to get feedback. “Partners didn’t agree and it’s difficult to raise rates because the travel industry has not recovered. We think we cannot increase rates more compared with this year’s rate,” she said. Hoang Thach Thao, director of marketing and communications of the Renaissance Riverside Saigon Hotel, told the Daily the five-star hotel was considering rates for 2010 and had not sent any announcement about 2010 rates to partners. “We are considering but at the moment we think prices for 2010 may not change compared to this year’s rate,” she said. Thao also said that the Impressive Vietnam promotion campaign ended on December 31 so raising rates for 2010 should not be a problem. The campaign was initiated by VNAT early this year to weather the economic storm. Following the call from the department, more than 100 travel agencies, hotels, transportation companies and other travel service provides across the country joined hands to reduce packaged tour prices by 30-50% for foreigners. VietNamNet/SGT Tours to domestic destinations attract travellers The number of travellers who have booked tours for 2010 New Year and Tet is relatively higher than non-holidays and higher than the same period last year, travel firms have said.
Tourists in Da Lat The total number of travellers who have booked tours via Saigontourist for the Christmas and New Year’s holidays has reached 7,000, an increase of eight percent over the same period from last year. Meanwhile, Ben Thanh Tourist has reported an increase of 10-15 percent. Meanwhile, according to Nguyen Minh Man, senior executive of Vietravel, the travel firm will service 2,000 clients over Christmas and the New Year; so far 50 percent of this number have confirmed tours. Domestic destinations have been the choices of many travellers. Southerners like travelling to the north and the central regions, choosing the tours to Travel firms said that though prices have increased by five to 10 percent on average due to the higher service fees over the festival season, the number of travellers is still higher than the previous year. Explaining the increase in the number of tourists, Nghia (FULL NAME) from Ben Thanh Tourist said that it is because of the preferences offered by travel firms and the policies of the State which aim to stimulate the demand. Trips to the north via air have attracted clients because the ticket prices have decreased by two million dong. Meanwhile, Da Lat City is preparing for the Da Lat flower Festival which will take place between January 1 - 4, 2010.
VietNamNet/TBKTSG Airlines plan to provide more flights on Tet Lunar New Year holiday Air tickets for some short-distance air routes have run out, though Tet is two months away. Vietnam Airlines has decided to provide 850 more flights on Tet, anticipating the 20 percent increase in the number of passengers on the holiday. Jetstar Pacific said it is keeping a close watch over the market in order to set up its own suitable flight schedule.
To date, the national flag air carrier Vietnam Airlines has been the only airline which has announced plans to increase the number of flights on Tet holiday. The 850 additional flights will be provided in the period between February 1, 2010 and February 28, 2010. Despite the economic downturn, the air carrier still forecasts a 20 percent increase in the number of passengers in comparison with the previous Tet. Especially, on the Hanoi-HCM City air route, the air carrier plans to increase air freight capacity by 45 percent on average and by 85 percent on the highest peak days (which is equivalent to 6,500-7,500 seats per day, one way). As for the HCM City-Da Nang air route, the freight capacity will be raised by 1,600-3,900 seats per day (one way), an increase of 65 percent in comparison with ordinary days and 120 percent on the highest peak day. The Hanoi – HCM City – Hanoi air route alone will see additional 562 flights with the earliest flights in the day departing at 5.30 am and the latest at 11.30 pm. The HCM City-Da Nang air route will have 288 additional flights. With budget Jetstar Pacific Airlines, a ticket shortage has been reported since July 2009. On the key air route Hanoi-HCM City, Jetstar Pacific is providing 11 flights per day. With the current fleet of five B 737s and one A320, the air carrier cannot raise the capacity unless it has more aircraft. Therefore, the air carrier does not plan to increase capacity during the Tet holiday. But it has said it will keep close watch over the situation to make suitable adjustments. Indochina Airlines has several times delayed its flight schedule. After returning the only chartered aircraft to its foreign partner due to the financial difficulties, the airline stated that it would resume flights on December 15. However, it has, once again, asked for the permission to delay until December 25. Indochina Airlines is facing the risk of having its license revoked if it cannot settle debts and set up feasible business plan to be submitted to the Civil Aviation Administration of Vietnam (CAAV). Luong Hoai Nam, former General Director of Jetstar Pacific, said that in general, airlines are not really interested in providing more flights during the Tet season as they do not have ‘driving force’ to do that. Nam said that the high demand for travel only occurred with one way flights, while return flights are always in low demand. In the days just before Tet, the demand is always high for south to north tickets, but few want to fly north to south. Therefore, Nam said, Jetstar Pacific and other airlines do not see much benefit in increasing capacity, because the more air carriers fly, the bigger loss they will suffer. Ha Yen News for Tuesday 15 December, 2009
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