#Cambodia plans Da Nang flight to boost tourism with #Vietnam

Prime Minister Hun Sen last week said a soon-to-begin direct flight between Phnom Penh and Da Nang, in central Vietnam, will boost the number of Vietnamese visitors to the Kingdom.

Speaking during a business forum during a two-day visit to Vietnam, Mr Hun Sen said the new fight, which will be operated by Cambodia’s national flag carrier, will play an important role in attracting more tourists from Vietnam.

“Vietnam continues to be the second-largest tourist market for Cambodia, and we expect to see more and more Vietnamese tourists choosing Cambodia as their holiday destination,” he said.

He said the Kingdom welcomed about 470,000 Vietnamese tourists during the first seven months of the year, an increase of 4.6 percent over the corresponding period last year.

Cambodia Angkor Air, the national flag carrier, recently announced that its Phnom Penh-Da Nang route will launch on Oct 27. Phnom Penh will become the second city, after Siem Reap, that the airline connects with Da Nang.

Mr Hun Sen said the new flight is a welcomed addition to the existing 112 flights that connect Cambodia and Vietnam every week.

Chhay Sivlin, president of the Cambodia Association of Travel Agents, noted the number of Vietnamese tourists is on the rise.

“The flight will not only bring in more Vietnamese tourists. Foreign tourists that visit Da Nang now also have the opportunity to board a plane and travel directly to Phnom Penh,” she said.

Tourism Minister Thong Khon recently urged airlines in Vietnam to increase the number and frequency of flights to Cambodia, particularly to Phnom Penh, Siem Reap and the coastal areas. He said that at least 15 percent of Vietnamese tourists prefer air travel.

The minister noted that Cambodia aims to attract about one million Vietnamese tourists a year by 2020. Currently, about 900,000 Vietnamese tourists visit Cambodia every year.

Cambodia and Vietnam have also agreed to cooperate on marine tourism once the new seaport in Kampot province is completed, which is expected to happen in 2021.

Mr Khon said marine tourism cooperation is an effective mechanism to boost cooperation among Asean countries.

According to the latest figures from the Ministry of Tourism, from January to July, Cambodia welcomed 1,154,786 visitors from Asean countries, a 5 percent hike compared to the same period last year.

Source - Khmer Times

#Vietnam - Major hotspots brace for National Day tourism surge

 As the 3-day National Day holiday nears, accommodations in tourism hotspots show varying occupancy levels, online reservation sites say.

The vacancy rate in the central Vietnam destinations of Da Nang, Hoi An, Hue, and Phan Thiet is hovering around 50 percent on average, according to Agoda, a global online accommodation reservations provider.

On Traveloka, one of the leading flight and hotel booking platforms in Southeast Asia, a number of places in the ancient imperial capital of Hue like Gold Hotel Hue, Hotel La Perle, Cherry Hotel, and Huong Giang Hotel still have rooms for VND600,000 ($26) to VND1.4 million ($60) per night.

In Da Nang, the occupancy rate is abnormally low due to the city's shortage of water. High salinity levels in the Cau Do (Red Bridge) River, the main source of freshwater for a million residents and tourists in Da Nang, mean the city can only meet 70 percent of its water needs.

Some hotels are refusing to accept bookings because they do not have enough water. At Melia Danang Beach Resort, the number of room bookings by Vietnamese between August 30 and September 2, the National Day, is only 10 percent.

Some hotel managers in Da Nang, a top tourist attraction, said tourists booking hotel rooms during the holiday weekend are mainly from South Korea, Japan and mainland China.

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 The average occupancy rate of hotels in Vung Tau, a popular vacation destination in southern Vietnam, is also 50 percent, while it is 85 percent at some high-end hotels and resorts like Pullman, Malibu and Green Hotel.

Tu Le, a teacher working in HCMC's District 1, said she booked two rooms facing the sea at Leman Cap Resort & Spa in the southern beach town, and the rates were not much higher than normal.

Bookings seem tougher at hotels in Da Lat. Most hotels and resorts in the Central Highlands resort town have been fully booked up ahead of the holiday.

Bao Lam, 32, a bank employee in Ho Chi Minh City, said he was unable to get a family room in a luxury hotel in Da Lat.

Nomad Home Dalat and Elegant Dalat Hotel, two of Da Lat's most popular hotels, only have one or two double rooms available and they cost around VND1.2 million ($52) each per night, according to Booking.com, a travel fare aggregator and travel metasearch engine for hotel reservations. 

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Pham Van Bay, Deputy Director of Vietravel Hanoi, said since the National Day holiday this year is not long, most people have opted for domestic tours, with northern mountainous destinations like Moc Chau, Sa Pa, Cao Bang, and Ha Giang being very popular.

Pham Cao Vy, chairman of the Sa Pa Tourism Association, said most hotels have kept their rates unchanged though it could be a bit difficult for travelers to find a place.

National flag carrier Vietnam Airlines and low-cost carrier Jetstar Pacific have said they would add a total of 240,000 seats on domestic routes from August 30 to September 2 to meet the increased travel demand.

SOURCE - VN EXPRESS

Surge of Thai visitors lifts Da Nang hopes for tourism market diversity

 Da Nang, which wants to reduce its dependence on Chinese and South Korean tourists, is seeing a jump in the number of Thai visitors.

With 60 weekly flights connecting Vietnam’s third largest city with major Thai destinations, the number of Thai arrivals to Da Nang quadrupled year-on-year in the first seven months of this year to almost 107,000.

Thais accounted for 6 percent of Da Nang's total foreign arrivals, becoming the third largest group after South Koreans (1 million, making up 57 percent) and Chinese (500,000 or 26 percent), according to the city’s tourism department.

Domestic and foreign carriers, betting on this trend, have been racing to launch more flights. Vietnamese budget carrier Vietjet Air last year launched flights from Da Nang to Bangkok. In April Malaysian-owned budget airline Thai AirAsia began a daily service from Chiang Mai to Da Nang.

Da Nang is a major economy-tourism hub that attracts many foreign visitors, including Thai tourists, all year round, Santisuk Khlongchaiya, head of Thai AirAsia’s commercial operations, said.

 From Da Nang, tourists can easily travel to world-renowned destinations such as Hoi An, Hue and My Son, he added.

Da Nang, home to Asia’s most beautiful beach, My Khe, in the central region and next door to the UNESCO heritage site Hoi An, an ancien town, has long been a favorite for South Korean and Chinese visitors.

However, its heavy dependence on the two markets poses a risk, city tourism officials said.

"The Chinese market is volatile due to political and economic reasons," Truong Hong Hanh, Deputy Director of the city Tourism Department, said.

"The surge in number of Chinese arrivals also presents numerous challenges for the Vietnamese government such as ‘zero dollar tours,’ the use of Chinese electronic wallets such as WeChat Pay and AliPay and illegal payment devices at travel hotspots frequented by Chinese tourists that could circumvent Vietnam’s banking system and national regulations, leading to loss of tax revenues and other potential problems."

Meanwhile, the overseas travel trend of South Korean tourists is "very changeable", Hanh added.

Da Nang tourism authorities said they were therefore looking at diversifying the tourism market away from Chinese and South Koreans by working with airlines to launch more flights to and from other markets.

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Tourists enjoy the blue sea in Da Nang in central Vietnam. Photo by VnExpress/Nguyen Dong.

Indonesia’s Sriwijaya Air is expected to begin services between Jakarta and Da Nang, while Cambodia’s Angkor Air is set to launch flights from Phnom Penh and Vientiane, both by year-end.

City authorities also s  aid they are striving to attract more Middle Eastern visitors, whose spending is higher than that of other Asians and Europeans.

Last year Qatar Airways began flying from the Qatari capital Doha to Da Nang.

The city's foreign arrivals in January-July was 1.9 million, up 11.2 percent year-on-year, with some of the biggest source markets posting huge growth. The number of visitors from Taiwan increased by 86 percent, while it was 81.5 percent for Germany, 79 percent for India, 70 percent for Malaysia, 68 percent for France, and 53 percent for Singapore.

Da Nang, which has won global attention with its annual international fireworks competitions in June-July and its spectacular Golden Bridge, has been improving its transport, healthcare, commercial, and services infrastructure to cope with the rising number of tourists.

Images of the two giant hands holding up the 150 meters long Golden Bridge at Ba Na Hills have gone viral since its launch in June last year.

The New York Times earlier this year included the city in its 52 best places to visit in 2019 while Australian travel website Finder listed it among 10 trending global destinations this year.

Last year Da Nang received 7.6 million visitors, 2.87 million of them foreigners, a 23.3 percent increase year-on-year.

Video

Source - VN Express

#Vietnam - Da Nang gains stature as a must-go destination

Da Nang should be high on the list of places to visit in Southeast Asia, says Channel News Asia.

The Singaporean pay TV channel has included the Vietnamese city in a list of five under the radar destinations in south and southeast Asian regions.

It says that in Vietnam, the spotlight is mostly trained on the country’s two biggest metropolises - Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, but Da Nang, home to Asia’s most beautiful My Khe Beach and neighbor to Hoi An, the ancient town, has plenty to offer.

Intrepid travelers can climb up the famous Marble Mountains, a group of five marble and limestone mountains, to discover “hidden caves, tunnels and Buddhist shrines galore,” it recommends.

The central Vietnamese city has gained greater prominence since its Golden Bridge opened in June this year.

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 The visually stunning bridge has been featured in CNN’s best travel photographs of the year, the news channel notes.

Once a sleepy fishing town, Da Nang is now a formidable tourism destination, gaining renown for its long beaches and upscale resorts.

The city received more than five million visitors in the first seven months of this year, up 30 percent over the same period last year, according to the Da Nang tourism department.

Travel magazine Live and Invest Overseas, “the world's savviest source for top opportunities to live better, retire in style, invest for profit, do business,” voted Da Nang among world’s most livable cities earlier this year.

The site also recommends tourists to go on a safari in Colombo, Sri Lanka, swim in a volcanic lake in Indonesia’s Medan, go glamping in India’s Visakhapatnam and visit an island of silk-weavers in Phnom Penh, Cambodia.

Source  - VN Express.net

 

#Vietnam's Golden Bridge among Time's top 100 destinations this year

Just months after it opened to public, Vietnam’s amazing Golden Bridge continues to grab the world’s attention.

The Time magazine has listed it in its list of top 100 World’s Greatest Places for 2018.

Remarking on its architectural creativity, the magazine’s Julia Zorthian notes: “The two massive stony hands emerging from the mountains of central Vietnam may look mossy and cracked like ancient ruins, but don’t be fooled: they’re brand-new wire mesh and fiberglass supports for a striking footbridge that opened in June.”

Images of the two giant hands holding up the 150 meters long bridge at Ba Na Hills near Da Nang have gone viral and many international media outlets have remarked on the bridge, including AFP, Reuters and CNN.

Vu Viet Anh, Design Principal at TA Landscape Architecture that designed the pedestrian walkway, told Reuters that the bridge was designed to stimulate the image of the “giant hands of Gods, pulling a strip of gold out of the land.”

Other places on Time’s list include the Macan Museum in Indonesia and Tianjin Binhai Library in China.

According to Time, editors and experts at the magazine evaluated the entries based on quality, originality, innovation, sustainability and influence.

Offering grand views of mountains and forests from a height of almost 1000 metres above sea level, the bridge is set to attract increasing numbers of tourists to Da Nang and Ba Na Hills.

The Vietnam National Administration of Tourism reported that Ba Na Hills attracted 2.7 million visitors in 2017.

In the first six months of this year, more than 1.7 million of four million plus people visiting Da Nang also visited Ba Na Hills.

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Hoi An Ancient Town - The beauty of Vietnam

Whereas Da Nang is the focus point of central Nam, a couple of hours further south will take you not only to the our son ruins from the Cham Empire, but also the ancient town of Hoi An. It is a major stop on the itinerary for every backpacker as they adventure through South East Asia – and it’s not hard to see why.

 When we first arrived in Vietnam, it took a long time to fully appreciate the people and the culture. It was never on the radar for us first wave of nations to backpack, but as we began getting more and more used to the region, We realised that we couldn’t put off flying to Vietnam any longer, and we got our visa sorted and finally made it to Hanoi. Soon, We had made our way south to the central parts of the country. Da Nang was disappointing. Hue was incredible (one of the best places We’ve visited). Hoi An was the last of these major cities in central Nam that we got it, and we wondered how it would rank alongside the other two.

 As it turned out, we really enjoyed my stay in Hoi An, and we wish we could have spent longer there. There were times when it didn’t really feel like Vietnam at all. Some people say Hoi An is a little too “fake”; that is designed like a theme park to impress tourists. However, we thought the opposite: it was a great town to check out in close proximity the Vietnamese people going about their everyday business. There was great food, great people, lovely architecture (oh the architecture!), and all that was missing was a few tourist attractions to keep me occupied – which is kind of ironic when you think of the criticism Hoi An gets for being “touristy”!

 

 Rather than walking around a huge theme park, at times we thought we was in Mexico or Peru, what with the brightly coloured façades of the buildings and rustic look of the bars and cafés. Of course, you’re going to notice lanterns in Hoi An (lanterns are one of the trademarks of the city), but also here you are beside the water and it was nice to take a river cruise on a small junk boat. Unlike some of the junk boats at Halong Bay up north, these boats looked much more traditional. It was as if we where sailing out to sea with a couple of local fishermen in their trawlers!

 Overall, we would come back to Hoi An in an instant. The sights, sounds, and smells still stick with me now, some weeks since returning. It could possibly be that Hoi An, like no other place in the country, typifies Vietnamese culture, and if you can find some cheap accommodation it must be great to spend a while here and just immerse yourself in the daily goings-on – that’s what we’ll be doing next time!

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