TRAVEL IN BRIEF 3/7

UK tour operators visit Vietnam

A British mission arrived in Hanoi earlier last week to promote Vietnam as a destination for British and the European tourists. The delegation visited ha long Bay, Yen Tu, Da Nang, Hoi An, HCM City and Vinh Long.

According to figures from the Viet Nam National Administration for Tourism, about 81,000 visitors from the UK arrived in Vietnam last year, a 14% increase from the previous year. However, the figure was modest given that more than 30mil Britons travel abroad every year.

Cruise tourism on the rise

HCM City welcomed Italian cruise ship Costa Allegra, which docked at the Nha Rong Port last Saturday with 1,200 visitors from Italy, Germany and France. They visited My Tho City, Nha Trang, Da Nang, Hoi An and Hue.

This is Costa Allegra's third visit bringing European tourists to Vietnam under a co-operation programme with Saigontourist. The city has so far this year received some 12,000 tourists aboard cruise ships, an increase of 140% compared with the same period last year.

HCM City prepares for travel expo

Local and overseas tourism companies, tour operators and airlines have registered for 100 booths at the second International Travel Expo 2006 in HCM City scheduled to kick off at Phu Tho Stadium on August 4.

Foreign exhibitors include travel agencies and tourist companies from Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand. The HCM City Tourism Department, the event organiser, said 70 international travel buyers would visit the fair, with many of them from Canada, Germany, France, Russia, Japan, Thailand and Hong Kong.

Air France announces daily flights

Air France has increased flight frequency between Vietnam and Paris from five to seven weekly flights via Bangkok, with three lights from Hanoi and four from HCM City, the airline announced last week during a celebration of its 60 years of operation in Vietnam.

Air France began its Vietnamese commercial flights on June 18,1946 when an Air France DC4 aircraft took three days to fly from Orly Airport to Sai Gon with stopovers in Tunis, Cairo and Calcutta.

Today, the airline's Airbus 340 takes only 11 hours to fly from Charles de Gaulle Airport to Tan Son Nhat.

Star-shaped fortress summit in Hue

The 4th international summit of cities with star-shaped fortresses, held earlier this month in the Netherlands, will hold its next meeting in Hue. Do Bien Thuy, deputy director of the Thua Thien-Hue Foreign Affairs Department, said the triennial summit in Holland attracted delegates from cities in the Netherlands, Finland, Italy, Russia, Japan and Vietnam.

The idea for bringing together cities having citadels in the shape of stars originated at the 1995 G-7 Economic Summit in Halifax, Canada. The first summit was held in 1997 in Japan's Hakodate.

(Source: Viet Nam News)