Up to now, Ha Long Bay has listed in 28 “Official Finalist Candidates” of the global vote for New7Wonders of Nature.

Situated in the north-east region of Viet Nam, Ha Long Bay covers a total area of 1,553km², including 1,969 islands of various sizes. The beauty of Ha Long Bay consists in the forms of its mountains, islands and the color of its waters. While exploring the bay, tourists will feel lost in a legendary world of stone islands whose shapes change depending on angle and light and names given according to their shapes and forms and they are astonished by rich system of grottoes and caves which are grandiose and refined natural architectural creations. Ha Long is considered as a precious geological museum that has been naturally preserved in the open air for hundreds million years.

Ha Long Bay has value of biological diversity featured ecosystems of a tropical ocean region including ecosystem of coral reefs, salt water-flooded forests, tropical rain

forests… Many important cultural and historical relics have been preserved in Ha Long Bay area. Ha Long is a home of ancient Viet people about 18,000 to 3,500 years ago and a place of witness closely linked to Vietnam’s history during the feudal period.

Now, please vote for Ha Long Bay to be a new natural wonder of the world. The vote is underway and will last until November 11, 2011 via the website: http://www.new7wonders.com/vote-2?lang=en

In Halong has many cruises. Paloma Cruise,

• Bhaya Classic Cruise
• Valentine Cruise
• Indochina Sails
• Violet Cruise
• Jasmine Cruise
• Ginger Cruise
• Emeraude Classic
• Paradise Luxury Cruise
• Paradise Peak

As of October 1, Air Mekong will run a direct air route from Vinh to Buon Me Thuot and vice versa with one flight a day.

Accordingly, flights depart from Buon Me Thuot at 13h50 and return from Vinh at 15h40 with a total time of 1 hour and 20 minutes.

Air tickets excluding tax and aviation fees are sold at different prices. The cheapest costs VND1 million.

Air Mekong is also expected to open a Hanoi-Con Dao air route as of September 6. The new direct flight duration will be shortened by 50 percent compared to the connected flight.

(Source: VNA)

The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism is planning to hold more cultural and tourism festivals in foreign countries like South Korea, Japan, Russia and Norway this year to promote inbound travel.

Nguyen Van Tinh, head of the ministry’s International Cooperation Bureau, told the Daily that along with such festivals, the bureau would arrange familiarization trips for foreign media to look into the country’s tourism potentials.

Last year there were 22 groups of foreign media representatives visiting the nation and according to the bureau, the number will be higher this year. In particular, some foreign media teams will come here to organize game shows through which viewers can see images of the country.

In these promotion activities, the bureau will give priority to attracting Japanese tourists to come back after the disaster in March.

“In addition to a festival set for September, we will organize a big concert in Vietnam in October, featuring performances by famous Japanese music bands, and around 2,500 fans from Japan will come for the event,” he said.

Tinh said the country’s tourism authority was pinning high hopes on the Japanese market as it had been growing steadily after the earthquake and tsunami hit northeastern Japan.

“Visitors from Vietnam’s third largest market were briefly down following the disaster. But we’ve seen a pickup of Japanese tourist arrivals in recent months and the total number this year is expected to be the same as last year,” Tinh said.

According to the Vietnam National Administration of Tourism, Japanese tourist arrivals last month increased 6.5% year-on-year, taking the total the year to last month to 204,000, a year-on-year improvement of 2.6%.

Source: SGT