Khanh Hoa trains tourism staff in Russian

The People’s Committee of central coastal Khanh Hoa province has just approved a Russian language training project for local tourist personnel, prompted by a fast increase in the number of Russian and Russian-speaking visitors.
The project, with a budget of 6.3 billion VND (around 315,000 USD) and funded by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, sets the ambitious target of equipping 40 percent of State employees involved in tourism affairs with basic communication skills in Russian by 2015.
At the same time, 70 percent of the management of local travel agencies, 50 percent of their staff and 40 percent of local tour guides will also be trained in basic communicative skills in the language.
Training courses under the project are to commence in the second quarter of 2013.
In 2012, Khanh Hoa received 530,000 international visitors, 83,000 of them were Russians, accounting for 15 percent.
It is forecast that the number of Russian tourists arriving in the province will increase by around 20 percent each year in the coming time.
At present, three daily flights are bringing visitors from Russia ’s Far East region to the province through Cam Ranh International Airport . The national carrier Vietnam Airlines will also launch a service from Cam Ranh to Moscow this April.