The company has arranged tours to Hoi An, Hue and Halong Bay for French tourists as well as served international visitors participating in seminars held in HCMC.

It says it will continue to boost MICE business by putting into operation the Saigon International Exhibition and Convention Center and join the IT&CMA international MICE travel fair lasting from October 7 to 10 in Bangkok, Thailand.

These activities not only help promote Vietnam as a venue for conferences and meetings, but also extend the country’s market share in Asia’s MICE tourism.

The company has received totally 153,000 international tourists in the past six months, up by 35% over the same period last year.

Tran Chien Thang, Deputy Minister of Culture, Sports and Tourism, said while tourism in the villages had helped raise standards of living, many tour services were still woefully inadequate.

About 20 per cent of the villages around the country face closure and another 20 per cent have gone bankrupt in recent months.

Luu Duy Dan, deputy chairman of the Viet Nam Association of Craft Villages, said the villages should improve infrastructure and environmental protection to attract more tourists.

The country has 2,017 craft villages, creating jobs for 11 million people, according to the association.

Most handicraft villages have not been able to take advantage of the tourism potential of their traditional cultures, ministry officials have said.

Along with several cities and provinces, the central province of Quang Nam has begun to promote tourism more aggressively.

Last January, the Quang Nam Province People’s Committee launched a project to preserve and develop craft villages through 2020.

The VND 661.5 billion (US$ 41 million) project has focused on 43 villages that produce handicrafts and provide tourism services.

Included are the province’s Kim Bong carpentry village, Thanh Ha pottery village and Tra Que vegetable village.

At the 500-year-old vegetable village, tourists participate in farming activities, including planting seedlings, watering vegetables and ploughing fields.

Ho Xuan Hung, Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, said handicraft villages had played an important role in rural economic restructuring and agriculture. They had also helped promote the image of the country’s products to the world, he added.

It is believed that releasing lanterns on the river at night is a way for people’s wishes to come true, especially the belief that couples who release lanterns together will be happy forever.

The festival will feature 35 complexes of lanterns based on famous legends of Vietnam and China, such as the legend about Hoan Kiem Lake, Ha Long Bay, the world of animals, the kingdom of dinosaurs and others.

The festivals will also have martial art shows, folk games, folk festivals and feature ancient Ha Noi with Dong Ho paintings, paper fans, and to he (toy figurines)

As currently scheduled, from October 1-5, 2008 around 100 representatives from tourism associations, travel agents and several reporters from Japan and the RoK will survey and conduct business in Nha Trang.

According to the Tourism and Commerce Promotion Center, over the past several years, Vietnam has been one of the top safe and attractive destinations most favored and selected by foreign tourists.

The number of tourists from Japan and the RoK is on the rise. However, only Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City are familiar destinations for potential tourists from those countries, while Nha Trang has not yet been advertised widely in the Japanese and RoK markets. Thus, a the cooperative program between Khanh Hoa’s Culture, Sports and Tourism Department and the Vietnam Aviation Corporation has been established, with the aim of successfully attracting Japanese and Korean tourists to the Central Coast city.

The Tourism and Commerce Promotion Center will introduce the tourist attractions and tourism products of Nha Trang for the two Fam trips. They will also survey scenic areas such as the Ponagar Tower, Long Son Pagada, Nha Trang Bay and the Ponagar Tower Hot Spa Center.