The travellers departed from Long Xuyen City to watch a boat race in Chau Doc Town and enjoy the Khmer people’s Chol Chnam Thmay traditional festival in Tri Ton District. They also visited the Cam Mountain in Tinh Bien District.

The tour is part of an “Agricultural Tourism” project sponsored by Agriterra, a development arm of five farmers’ unions in the Netherlands, which has been launched from 2007 to 2009 at a total expense of EUR 300,000.

The project’s main activity is arranging 72-hour tours for international guests to stay at local people’s houses and visit local sites including My Hoa Hung landscape in Long Xuyen City, Cham brocade craft village, Ba Chua Xu temple, Tinh Bien international border-gate market, Van Giao brocade craft village, Cam Mountain and Pol Pot relic site.

It is a good opportunity for the locals and the Khmer people to develop community-based tourism to increase their incomes. It also helps promote the local economy.

The Guide Awards are sponsored annually by the executive of the Vietnam Economic Times to celebrate the Year’s Best of products and services in the tourism sector in Vietnam.

This is the second year that Luxury Travel has won this award. Winners of the annual The Guide Awards were selected based on votes by Vietnam Economic Times readers, surveys of tourism and hospitality products and services conducted in 2008-2009 by travel journalists of Vietnam Economic Times and the organizing board under stringent criteria of the Ministry of Sports, Culture and Tourism and Vietnam Economic Times.

Last year, six winners in the category of tour operators are named Exotissimo Travel, Saigon Tourist, Ben Thanh Tourist, Vietravel, Buffalo Tours and Luxury Travel.

Vietnam Economic Times magazine, which includes The Guide Magazine, is one of the country’s leading economic, travel, leisure and lifestyle publications. Launched in 1992, it now has four different versions distributed in Europe, Asia and America. All versions poll their readers annually to select the best companies in tourism and hospitality industry.

Luxury Travel has emerged as the first luxury tour company in Asia. The Guide Award referred to the Oscar of Travel Industry in Vietnam, is the most prestigious award given by the Vietnamese tourism industry.

“The accolade is very encouraging for all of our luxury travel advisors and our company. We are not about being the biggest but about being the best. We are committed to provide the international luxury standards of product and service. Our goal is to continue to raise the bar in service excellence and further develop Vietnam as a luxury travel destination catering to the discerning traveler”, said Mr. Pham Ha, Founder/CEO of Luxury Travel Vietnam

Luxury Travel Co., Ltd. is a 100% fully registered and privately-owned Vietnamese company. It was founded by luxury travel specialists since 2004 when Vietnam had just opened its doors to worldwide luxury tourism.

The company’s depth of experience and large infrastructure enable it to create unique itineraries with the operational confidence to fulfill client expectations. Among Luxury Travel’s clients are ambassadors, French ministers, Deputy Prime Minister of Canada and others.

Luxury Travel is headquartered in Hanoi and has offices around Vietnam and management offices in Laos and Cambodia. Luxury Travel has won numerous travel awards for excellence.

In order to promote the city’s destinations to main and potential markets, from early year to now Ho Chi Minh City has taken part many promotion programs of Vietnam National Administration of Tourism at home and abroad or organized its own programs such as: Asian Tourism Forum (ATF) in Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City Tourism Festival 2009, Southern Fruit Festival, road show in Australia, MATTA International Tourism Fair in Malaysia… The city is preparing to organize International Travel Exhibition (ITE) 2009 in next October with theme “Three countries - One destination” for tourism promotion in Indochinese countries.

In 2009, the department co-operated with municipal Tourism Association to organize conference of tourism development solutions 2009 with participations of nearly city’s 400 tourism firms. This conference aims to recommend tourism development solutions such as: programs of “Impressive Vietnam”, “Ho Chi Minh City – 100 interesting things” and other tourism promotion activities at home and abroad.

In addition, the department keeps on improving quality of tourism products, promotes tourism service programs with participation of over 60 shopping and gastronomy locations in centre districts. Mr. La Quoc Khanh, deputy director of Ho Chi Minh City Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism said the city has prepared many activities to mark the 1000th anniversary of Thang Long – Hanoi and National Tourism Year 2010 in Hanoi such as: “The Southern misses Thang Long – Hanoi” art program, “Thang Long gastronomy in the Southern” Festival…  These activities will reappear the culture, daily life, gastronomy of Northern people.

The symposium, co-organised by the Fulbright Centre and the Alliance for Peacebuilding (AfP), two US non-profit organizations, aims to build a more peaceful world and honours the most peaceful countries in the world.

The symposium attracted the 18 countries with the highest Global Peace Index (GPI) in 2009. The GPI, produced by the Institute for Economics and Peace in Sydney, Australia, is composed of 23 qualitative and quantitative indicators. Vietnam ranks 39th among 144 countries in the GPI’s ranking and second after Singapore in South Asia and Southeast Asia.

According to a report of the symposium’s organizing board, Vietnam has made significant contributions to peace. Although the country recently fought two wars it is now one of the most peaceful countries in Southeast Asia. Vietnam has achieved stability through an economic reform that the world knows as “Doi Moi”.

The report emphasised that Vietnam is always committed to peace and security in the region and the world and sets an example in military restraint.

Pham Van Chuong, Vice Chairman of the Vietnam Peace and Development Fund said many countries have praised Vietnam’s success in maintaining peace through economic development, improving local people’s living condition and supporting other countries.