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 encourageLao people to travel within the country to revive the tourism industry and itseconomy in the context that the government has eased restrictive measures to gradually normalisethe situation.
The Ministry of Information, Culture and Tourism said thatif the COVID-19 pandemic situation in the country continues its positive trend,it will launch initiatives to attract both domestic and foreign tourists, whileensuring disease prevention and not increasing the number of new infections.
Laos has set a target of welcoming more than 1 million touristsand generating more than 271 million USD in revenue this year.
In related news,the Lao Ministry of Health (MoH) hasasked health workers across the country to be wary of the Omicron variant afterthree Lao citizens returning from Thailand were found contracted with the virus.
The cases were detected when health authorities randomly conducted 25 samplestaken at hospitals in six provinces and cities across the country, while theremaining 22 samples were positive for the Delta variant.
According to the ministry, although no case of Omicroninfection has been found in the community, the country has detected 25imported cases of this variant. It urged people not to assume that the Omicronvariant is not as dangerous as other variants of the SARS-CoV-2 virus.
The MoH said onFebruary 14 that the number of COVID-19 cases recorded in the country in thepast 24 hours continued to drop with only 216 infections, down 47 casescompared to the previous day. To date, thetotal caseload in Laos reached 139,244, including 597deaths./.
