Lao people are encouraged to travel within the country to revive the tourism industry. (Photo: VNA/AFP) Vientiane (VNA) - Laos will step up the campaign to encourage Lao people to travel within the country to revive the tourism industry and its economy in the context that the government has eased restrictive measures to gradually normalise the situation.
The Ministry of Information, Culture and Tourism said that if the COVID-19 pandemic situation in the country continues its positive trend, it will launch initiatives to attract both domestic and foreign tourists, while ensuring disease prevention and not increasing the number of new infections.
Laos has set a target of welcoming more than 1 million tourists and generating more than 271 million USD in revenue this year.
In related news, the Lao Ministry of Health (MoH) has asked health workers across the country to be wary of the Omicron variant after three Lao citizens returning from Thailand were found contracted with the virus.
The cases were detected when health authorities randomly conducted 25 samples taken at hospitals in six provinces and cities across the country, while the remaining 22 samples were positive for the Delta variant.
According to the ministry, although no case of Omicron infection has been found in the community, the country has detected 25 imported cases of this variant. It urged people not to assume that the Omicron variant is not as dangerous as other variants of the SARS-CoV-2 virus.
The MoH said on February 14 that the number of COVID-19 cases recorded in the country in the past 24 hours continued to drop with only 216 infections, down 47 cases compared to the previous day. To date, the total caseload in Laos reached 139,244, including 597 deaths./.
