Tham Lom cave can become top tourist site of Vang Vieng

(KPL) Tham Lom cave, located along the Nam Song river, in Vang Vieng district, Vientiane province, is a popular destination for domestic and foreign tourists.
This is a well-known cave, mainly because of advertisements in the country and overseas.
Mr. Vansay Khamthip, owner of Tham Lom restaurant, said that this cave is a favourite site of many local and foreign tourists to Vang Vieng as they can go kayaking and tubing on the river and at the same time goes into the cave to explore on their own.
He also said that as he could see for himself an increase in the number of visitors to this cave, about 100 to 200 visitors per day, and this is giving him the incentive to further develop this site to make it more attractive for them.
Mr. Vansay had been mulling in his mind, he said the possibility of building a restaurant, huts and guesthouse for visitors
He is so upbeat on Tham Lom so that he said it is the beauty of nature of this site that really impress the visitor and he would come again giving this place a pool of repeat tourists

Round the clock night bazaar

(KPL) The Hong Thong Development Project (or Night Bazaar)would be operational on a round the clock basis to serve the tourists, commencing from the later part of the year and the purpose of this kind of operational hours is to attract more tourists to Vientiane capital.
This project, presently under construction, is located in Chanthaboury district, in front of Lao National Stadium.
President of Hong Thong Development Project, Mr Khamphay Somsana said that when the project was first proposed it was meant to serve the tourists and to offer them round the clock service.
Construction started in May 2008 and now 30 per cent of the building had been completed., the president of the project said.
“The project is part of Vientiane’s plan to generate more income to the city, especially to the business operators,” he said.
He added that the project would be opened as early as the opening day of the 25th Sea Games.
Funding for this project was made by four local investors, whose combined total investment was 25 billion kip and the authorities granted them a lease of 40 years, Mr Khamphay commented.
“We decided to construct the Night Bazaar because we found that the majority of tourists who visited Vientiane would not spend much time in it and as a result some of the Lao money goes to foreign countries,” said the president of Hong Thong Development Project.
The Night Bazaar would have 10,700 square metres of land, seven two-storey buildings, one restaurant, a public park and parking lot area, he said.
The restaurant would offer a whole range of Lao food and the prices would be affordable, he added. .
The handicraft products, he said would be on sale in the Night Bazaar in order to introduce to the foreign tourists the traditional culture of Laos and the products can be gifts to them, he said.

Laos Airline to reduce price for domestic flight

KPL) The Lao Airline State Enterprise announced recently to reduce its air fee for domestic flight and reduce its flight to foreign countries after the number of passengers has been gradually decreased.
Mr. Lada Sounthone, Marketing Manager of the Lao Airline State Enterprise disclosed that his company has reduced its price about 25% for all domestic flights and reduced some of its flights for oversea routes from 24 March to September.
Mr. Lada expressed that the reduction of price for domestic flight was only for the passengers who bought double tickets (returned ticket ) and the company has also reduced its flight from 7 flights to 5 flights a week from Vientiane –Hanoi and from 7 fights to 5 flights a week from Vientiane – Siem Reap and from 7 flights to five flights a week from Vientiane- Kumming.
The flight from Vientiane – Xiengmai and Vientiane-Bangkok are opened as usual. According to Mr. Lada, the Lao Airline must reduce air price and its flight due to the global financial crisis.
In the past few months, a number of passengers of the Lao Airline has reduced about 20-30% compared to the same period of last year.
Mr. Lada added that the passengers of Lao Airline may increase again during October of this year due to the 25th SEA Games and the Lao Airline will also receive new aircraft ATR 72-500 at the end of 2009 for serving the public

Delays to modernization of Pakse International Airport

(KPL) Improvement work to Pakse International Airport in Champassak province has only been partially completed, although it is already passed the scheduled completion date.
Head of the improvement project for Pakse International Airport, Mr Anousak Kittilath said that even though construction work started in March 2008 but till the present its completion is computed at 42 per cent.He said that work could not go on seamlessly because of a series of delays, the delivery of raw materials, monetary compensation to villagers who were affected by this project and heavy rainfall for three months in 2008.
However, he gave the assurance that the improvement work would be completed by the end of November, 2009. When completed, the big and modern airplanes, Boeing 737 airplane and Airbus 320 would be able to land and take-off from the runway of this airport, added Mr Anousak.
Mr. Anoulack Khithilath, also said that according to the terms of the contract, signed with the Italian-Thai Construction Company, in March 2008, the runway would be lengthened to 2,400 metres from 1,650 metres, the width of 36 metres to be widened to 45 metres and the total construction cost was over 233 million baht.

Vientiane capital to host 900,000 tourists next year

(KPL) According to the planners who wrote the Vientiane socio-economic plan, 900,000 visitors would be visiting Vientiane capital in the next fiscal year, 2009-2010.
To cater to their basic needs, there are 169 guesthouses, 69 restaurants and 37 tourism sites in Vientiane capital.
It is said that these might not be enough to cater to such a big number of domestic and foreign tourists next year and Vientiane capital is planning to expand its accommodation and tourism facilities.
Its expansion plan is to have 100 hotels, 175 guesthouses, 76 restaurants, 39 tourism sites, four cruise sites and 80 tourism companies.
According to the figures on arrivals at the Lao-Thai Friendship Bridge and other local checkpoints, Vientiane capital welcomed more than 400,000 visitors during the first six months of 2008-2009 fiscal year and their total expenditure was US$40 million.
Based on the estimated figures, Vientiane capital is expected to generate US$88 million in income by the end of this year. For the next fiscal year, Vientiane capital is planning to increase investments in tourism infrastructure and to make them more attractive to foreigners.