As the Tet (Lunar New Year) Festival is approaching, tourist companies
are eagerly preparing to launch tours to serve not only local
holidaymakers but also tens of thousands of foreign visitors.
Doan
Thi Thanh Tra, Head of the Saigontourist Travel Service Corporation’s
Marketing Department, said that as of January 26 (the 23rd day of the
12th lunar month) the company will begin to receive groups of foreign
tourists who want to experience the Vietnamese people’s biggest
traditional festival.
More than 8,500 visitors have booked tours
to Vietnam for the occasion and this is the 8th consecutive year that
Saigontourist has organised tours to serve holidaymakers from abroad as
well as foreigners who are working and living in the country.
If
booking a tour to Ho Chi Minh City, visitors will have a chance to enjoy
the flowers at the Tao Dan Park and learn about the spiritual lives of
the local people by visiting pagodas, where they can pray for good luck
during the Year of the Cat.
Visitors will have an interesting
experience by going on a sightseeing tour of Cho Lon market by pedicab
or visiting local families, enjoying traditional dishes and receiving
gifts for good luck from the owners.
Meanwhile, tours to the
Mekong Delta offer holidaymakers an opportunity to experience the
typical Tet atmosphere of the local residents, with exciting floating
markets and Don ca tai tu (music of the talented) singing. They can join
in with the hosts to pack banh tet (cylindric glutinous rice cakes) and
banh chung (glutinous rice cake).
In addition, Saigontourist’s
restaurants, hotels and tourist sites have also prepared menus with
typical and traditional dishes to serve domestic and foreign visitors
during the festival.
Other travel firms are planning to launch
their own tours, alongside the traditional ones, to attract tourists
during the holidays.
Duong Mai Lan, from the Vietravel Company’s
Marketing Department, said that most of visitors have chosen the central
ancient town of Hoi An, the central city of Da Nang and the Mekong
Delta as destinations.
Tours in the North will bring
holidaymakers to the capital city of Hanoi, the UNESCO-recognised
natural heritage Ha Long Bay, the northern mountainous town of Sapa, and
the Huong (Perfume) pagoda.
Tourists can travel along the Hong
(Red) river by ship and visit a number of riverside tourist sites such
as Tien Dung-Chu Dong Tu Temple and Bat Trang pottery village.
According
to the Vietnam National Administration of Tourism (VNAT), the country
is targeting welcoming 5.3 million foreign visitors and serving 30
million domestic holidaymakers in 2011.
The tourism sector will
strive to earn revenue of more than 110 trillion VND (5.5 billion USD),
equivalent to 4.6 percent of the country’s estimated gross domestic
product (GDP).
To reach these targets, the VNAT has mapped out
plans to attract one million tourists from each of the key markets,
namely Thailand, Japan, the Republic of Korea and Europe./.
