New Year hotel bookings up
New Year hotel bookings up
Hotel and guesthouse bookings for the three popular destinations of Vientiane, Luang Prabang and Vangvieng over the New Year period are all up on last year's reservations.
Director General of the Tourism Marketing Department, Mr Saly Phimphinith, said the department didn't have all the booking data yet for the New Year period but was basing its opinion on visitor arrivals.
The department expects to see at least 13 percent growth in the country's total bookings for 2014 as the number of tourists visiting Laos was expected to reach four million for the year.
Visitor arrivals to Laos were expected to grow by 13-15 percent, compared to 3.7 million in 2013, even though the number of Thai tourists had decreased slightly.
In 2014 Laos saw more visitors from China and the Republic of Korea, offsetting the fall in the number from Thailand, thanks to the opening of direct flights from Laos to those countries.
In the first six months of 2014 the Tourism Marketing Department recorded an increase in tourists from France, the UK, Australia and Japan as well as China and Korea compared to the same period in the previous year.
The data shows the number of Chinese visitors stood at 111,898 in the first quarter of 2014, up 50 percent compared to the same period in 2013.
The department recorded a 57 percent growth in the number of big spending Chinese tourists and a 55 percent increase in the number of well-off Australian visitors compared to the same period for 2013.
At present, investment in hotels is continuing to boom, especially in the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Luang Prabang, with 15 new hotels under construction in 2014. This would point to the number of bookable rooms in Laos being higher this year, Head of the Tourism Management Department, Mr Phonesavanh Jelakha, said.
Mr Saly told Vientiane Times recently that Laos was a new tourism market for high-end tourists from Europe, China and Korea so the department was working with hotels and resorts to provide better quality facilities and accommodation in a bid to attract more affluent visitors.
