Making Viet Nam more impressive

      Travel agencies have decided to extend the Impressive Viet Nam tourism promotion, originally scheduled to wrap up in September, through the high season until the end of this year.
Vietnam Airlines and many five-star hotels, who are participating in the programme, have promised to offer low-priced fares and rooms for people coming on organised tours.
Impressive Viet Nam offers them discounts of 5–10 per cent for travelling by land and 30–35 per cent for travelling by air.
More than 85 travel agencies, hotels, shops, restaurants and transport operators have signed up for the programme.
A spokesperson for Saigontourist, the country’s biggest tour company, said promotions had not helped increase arrival numbers because of the economic downturn and the governments of some countries advising nationals not to visit A/H1N1 flu hit areas.
But they help the tourism sector by attracting more domestic tourists.
Tran The Dung, deputy director of The He Tre Tourism Company, said the number of people travelling to the northern region and taking the Central Heritage Road tour had been four times higher this month compared to June. Based on bookings, it was set to rise another 30 per cent in August, he said.
Vietnam Airlines has said it will cut fares for eight other travel agencies under the Impressive Viet Nam programme, taking the total number to 20.
Tour operators expected the number of domestic tourists to increase five-fold this summer from last year, Dung said.
However, the programme had attracted fewer foreign visitors than expected because of the limited time tour operators had to inform their foreign counterparts about it and Vietnam Airlines did not offer foreigners fare discounts.
There were nearly 1.9 million foreign arrivals in the first half, a 19 per cent fall year-on-year.
The Viet Nam National Administration of Tourism forecasts that the number of domestic tourists will increase by 30 – 40 per cent year-on-year during the remaining months of this year, while international arrivals will fall 20 per cent.