Stung by SARS, Vietnam's airline, hotels cut rates
HANOI - Vietnam's flagship carrier is
slashing airfares and hotels in its largest city are offering special
rates through September to revive tourism after visitor arrivals
plunged 30 percent in April due to SARS.
"We think the (weak) situation will be ongoing to June or July,"
Duong Xuan Hoi, deputy director of the Department of Tourism
at the national industry body, told Reuters on Tuesday.
The communist nation, which was declared free from the flu-like
Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome on April 28, received
155,000 foreign visitors last month, a 29.3 percent drop from
March.
A total of 63 people were infected by SARS in Vietnam, and
five died.
Hoi said the total number of international arrivals for 2003 was
expected to fall by one million from a previous target of
between 2.6 million and 2.8 million.
Vietnam Airlines is offering discounts from May to July, ranging
from 28 percent for travellers from Australia to 75 percent for
South Korean visitors.
A statement on its website said it is also discounting travel from
France by 30 percent and by 30-50 percent from Japan.
Four- and five-star hotels in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam's
commercial capital, have banded together to offer tourists one
free night for every two booked.
Henk Meyknecht, general manager of the Omni Saigon Hotel,
told Reuters on Tuesday that occupancy in city hotels has been
around 25 percent or less since the virus struck.
About a dozen high-end hotels in the city will participate in the
promotion from May 15 to September 30 that will target Japan,
Korea, Western Europe and Australia.
"After years of battling each other, suddenly we're like
brothers," said Meyknecht, referring to the promotion
agreement, which was struck at the weekend.
The hoteliers are also banking on publicity from a late June visit
by British soccer star David Beckham, the Manchester United
player, who will be on a Asian tour sponsored by lubricants firm
Castrol.
By Christina Toh-Pantin - Reuters - May 13, 2003.
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