More than 30 travel agencies from central provinces have set up
their club with the aim to better serve Thai visitors who arrive through
international border gates in the region.
According to Le Hung Phi, Director of the Culture, Sports and Tourism
Department of Quang Binh province, the number of Thai visitors to
central provinces boomed when Bridge Friendship 2 connecting Mukdahan
of Thailand and Savannakhet of Laos opened to traffic, facilitating
traffic on the East-West Economic corridor through 13 provinces of
Vietnam , Laos , Thailand and Myanmar .
The improvement of
infrastructure and visa procedures at border gates also contributed to
luring more Thai tourists to the central region, Hung added.
In
recent years, Thailand has been in the list of 10 key tourism markets
of Vietnam . In 2010, Vietnam welcomed more than 200,000 Thai
tourists, who came mainly by land routes through Lao Bao border gates in
Quang Tri, Cau Treo border gate in Ha Tinh, Cha Lo border gate in Quang
Binh and Nam Can border gate in Nghe An.
So far this year, Thai
visitors have made up about 20 percent of foreign tourists to the
central region, higher than the number of visitors from traditional
markets like France , Australia and Germany .
“Land border
gates will become popular routes and tourism promotion will attract
large number of visitors in the future,” said Cao Tri Dung, Director of
Vitours travel company.
In order to help tourism companies, the
tourism sectors of Quang Nam , Da Nang and Thua Thien-Hue have
organised a programme in Thailand to introduce Vietnam ’s cultural
heritage sites and local tourism potential to travel companies in the
north-eastern provinces of Thailand .
The Vietnam National
Administration of Tourism (VNAT) has forecast that by 2015, the number
of visitors travelling between Vietnam and Thailand through the
East-West Economic Corridor would reach 1 million after Bridge
Friendship 3 connecting Thailand and Laos is put into operation in
June, 2012.
According to Vu The Binh, Director of the Travel
Department of VNAT, the administration will replicate the club model
among companies serving Thai visitors through other international border
gates./.