The Danang City expects to attract about 60,000 people, of which 20,000 from outside the city for International Fireworks Competition 2010 which will be organized on March 27 and 28 in the city.

With the theme Huyen thoai song Han(Legend of Han River), this year’s International Fireworks Competition is one of seven country’s major cultural events to celebrate the 1,000th anniversary of Thang Long – Hanoi and will have competition between 5 teams from Portugal, the US, Japan, France and Vietnam. During the two nights, each team will perform for 20 minutes with music.

On this occasion, the city will also organize a parade of flower floats, a Vietnamese craft village festival, a kite-flying competition, an exhibition of embroidered pictures, a photo exhibition on international fireworks, and an exhibition named “Danang 2010 – a new stage.”

Organising board plans to issue 25,000 tickets priced at VND200,000 each for the competition. Tran Quang Thanh, Deputy Director of municipal Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism said that buyers have registered to buy half of the total of tickets.

Because the big number of tourists will come to Danang for International Fireworks Competition, most of the city’s hotels were fully booked so tour operators must arrange accommodation for their guests in nearby Hoi An, Chan May or Lang Co.

Thanh said the city had met with Vietnam Airlines to discuss increase of flights to and from the city when number of passengers goes up.

He also said that after this year’s competition, Danang would organize the event every two years.

Vu The Binh, Director of the Department of Travel under VNAT, said that VNAT has reached a common voice with the Ministry of Industry and Trade for joint promotion programs for local guests at shopping centers, supper markets, restaurants, hotels, and other venues in key cities. The VNAT expects to run the program during two months.

Detailed contents of the program will be announced after meetings between the VNAT with the departments of industry and trade of HCMC, Hanoi and Danang cities.

“VNAT and the ministry have agreed to run the program in these tourism centers. Both foreign and local guests will receive benefits from the program but domestic people will benefit much more from this,” Binh said.

According to the VNAT’s report, while the number of foreign visitors fell nearly 11% in 2009 to just over 3.8 million, the number of local travelers shot up 20% to some 25 million, which helped spur the country’s hospitality industry during tough times last year.

Over 21,000 people have received discounted air tickets from the “Impressive Vietnam” program to travel last year while many others have received other promotional services.

The agency in a meeting in Hanoi last week to review the “Impressive Vietnam” program changed its viewpoint to see the domestic travel segment as the base for tourism development. VNAT said that it would continue to speed up the growth of the sector and to encourage more local people to travel, and expected to receive around 28 million domestic tourists this year.

Regarding new promotions for domestic travelers this year, Binh said that Vietnam Airlines had agreed with the tourism sector to launch soft air fares for these tourists in this summer and other big holidays of the country in 2010.

Local tour operators have also seen the domestic market segment as the niche for their growth and are thinking more programs to attract visitors. Dozens of travel firms in HCMC are discussing methods for launching next joint programs to lower prices and improve tour quality for domestic travelers.

“We are thinking over methods to cut down cost, and continue to team up with one another to offer good prices from services providers for our tourists,” said Tran The Dung, Deputy Head of the Local Tourism Group that was set up under the “Impressive Vietnam” program.

He said that via the “Impressive Vietnam” program, some 40 members of the group have sold promotion package tours to 14,000 Vietnamese people last year, and are discussing how to join hands to launch new domestic tours this year.

“We will have a meeting after the Lunar New Year 2010 holiday for further discussions,” Dung said.

In excavations between July and December 2009, the archaeologists also found six tombs and 17 graves.

The move focuses on administrative reforms such as visa pick-up at border-gates for tourists and visa exemption for overseas Vietnamese, said the senior travel official.

He also cited intensive investments in infrastructural facilities, improvement of service quality and product diversification.

The hospitality industry is struggling against the impact of the global economic meltdown, decreasing number of foreign arrivals by 12.3% year-on-year to 3.4 million so far this year.

French tourists, who ranked seventh in the number of foreign arrivals, were reduced by 3.7% year-on-year to almost 160,000 in the months to December.

Cuong, however, expressed optimism over the French market, the top-ten market in terms of visitors to Vietnam, citing numerous accords of cooperation as a springboard.

Vietnam and France reached an agreement in tourism in 1996. In 2005, a protocol between the VNAT and the French Department of Tourism was signed and most recently in last September a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) on implementing the above-mentioned protocol was inked.

The MOU covers the exchange of information, assistance in personnel training and promotion campaigns for investment-tourism which call for favourable conditions for travel agents between the two countries to meet and discuss opportunities of investment.

Vietnamese Ambassador Le Kinh Tai highlighted major events next year such as the Hue Festival in June, the Thang Long-Hanoi millennium anniversary in October, and the French Week in Vietnam in November as attractions for foreign tourists, especially from France.