The JATA World Travel Fair 2010 will run until September 26 and is expected to welcome 100,000 visitors.

Also on September 24, VNAT, Vietnam Airlines and Da Nang jointly held a seminar in Tokyo to promote Vietnam , drawing many travel agencies from Vietnam and Japan.

Speaking at the seminar, Vietnamese Ambassador to Japan Nguyen Phu Binh said Japan is a potential market for Vietnam and it is necessary to accelerate activities to promote the image of Vietnam in Japan .

Meanwhile, Nguyen Thi Thanh Huong, Deputy Head of VNAT Department for Tourism Promotion, said that Japan has been among the top five tourism markets of Vietnam , providing an average of 400,000 tourists a year.

Vu The Binh, Director of the Travel Department of the Vietnam National Administration of Tourism, said that activities were being taken to improve services and tour guides quality, and to address undercutting among local tour operators. Cooperation with tourism agencies of Thailand and Laos is also being bolstered to increase the number of visitors from the region, he said.

“We need to address unfairly competition between travel companies first, and to improve the quality of tour guides and make attractive tours for Thai and travelers from ASEAN,” he said.

Binh said the tourism agency and relevant authorities have agreed to join hands to arrange activities to welcome overland travelers via border gates in the central region.

Under the support of the tourism agency, 22 travel firms, mostly in the region, have established a club to improve services instead of undercutting one another.

Binh said VNAT and the Tourism Authority of Thailand early this month had inked an agreement on tourism cooperation for the central region. The agency will meet with the national tourism agency of Laos for similar cooperation.

Thai travelers are the target guests for the program, he said.

“We want to develop the region as an attractive destination for Thai and travelers from ASEAN,” Binh said.

Thai tourists usually travel to the region via the border gates in the central region, such as Cau Treo, Cha Lo, Lao Bao and Nam Can. The tourism agency expects more than 100,000 Thai visitors to come to the region this year.

Binh said because of a lack of tour guides for Thai visitors, the tourism agency is going to help travel firms there to train quality tour guides.

Vu The Binh, Director of Department of Travel under VNAT said that VNAT completed talks with HCMC’s Department of Culture, Sports, and Tourism and Department of Industry and Trade about the joint program set for August and September. Similar talks occurred in Hanoi and Danang as well.

The relevant departments from each locality will sign cooperation deals to carry out the program. Over the two months, shopping centers, retail outlets, and other traders will offer promotions, discounting products and services for both locals and foreigners from 10% to 40%. Traders can contact either of the departments in their city to join the program. VNAT plans to offer discount coupons to international tourists via travel companies too.

“The two departments in Hanoi will review the joint program’s contents today to sign the cooperation deal,” Binh said.

Binh added that promotion fairs, in HCMC, Hanoi and Danang, would coincide with the Impressive Vietnam Grand Sale 2010 program. HCMC plans to hold its fair in November while Hanoi and Danang’s will take place in December.

The Impressive Vietnam Grand Sale 2010 program is part of a national marketing campaign called “Vietnam – Your Destination”. VNAT expects the first Impressive Vietnam program to enable the country’s tourism sector to organize yearly grand sale schemes similar to other regional countries to attract visitors.

“For the long term, we aim to develop shopping centers to promote shopping tours, in order to increase tourist spending in Vietnam,” Binh said.

He added that this year the organizer is unable to promote the program to foreign guests earlier. However, next year’s program will be displayed in travel brochures to encourage more tourists to visit Vietnam.

According to VNAT, more than 473,500 international visitors came to Vietnam last month, up 56% year-on-year, bringing the total number of foreign visitors in 2010’s first quarter to more than 1.35 million, up 36.2% compared to the same period last year.

The “1,000-year-old Thang Long-Hanoi” book collection, key projects to celebrate the millennium anniversary of the capital city has been implemented by the Hanoi Publishing House (HPH) since September 2006.

The collection covers various fields, including geography, socio-economics, literature, history and culture.

At present, the HPH is speeding up the compilation of the books in order to complete the collection before the millennium anniversary. To date, 21 book titles have been published.

In addition to the specialised collection, the publishing house has also released 25 book titles about Thang Long-Hanoi for local libraries and high schools in Hanoi. Five e-books about the capital city will be also published on the occasion.

The project will also collect and systematise documents about Thang Long-Hanoi in Vietnam and foreign countries in order to build a database on Thang Long-Hanoi’s civilisation. The collection and systematisation process is expected to be completed in June this year.

Earlier, the People’s Committee of Hanoi City has launched a campaign to seek valuable and rare books and documents about Thang Long-Hanoi and 412 valuable sets of documents have been collected so far.