Published:  16:53 Sunday - February 26, 2012

Despite the world economic recession and its impact on Vietnam, the number of tourists visiting Lao Cai has increased remarkably recently.

In 2010, 898 thousand tourists came to Lao Cai, and this number reached up to 969 thousand in 2011, 1/3 of which came from tens of different countries.

At the end of 2011, Mr Mark Zuckerberg, one of the two youngest billionaires of America who creates and manages Facebook social network visited Sapa and makes this place much more famous in the world. “High quality tourists” are not the Tourism term, but just the term used in this article, and it has two meanings: Attract more and more tourists having the demand of luxurious services and stimulate them to spend their money at tourism areas.

One specialized study in 2008 of Mr Nguyen Dinh Dung, Deputy Director of Lao Cai Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism said one foreign high quality tourist spends about 700 thousand dongs/day in Sapa while the normal one spends only a half or less. Mr Dung also said attracting high quality tourists must reach some factors like: improve quality of infrastructure and tourism service staff, conserve surrounding environment, preserve and promote national cultural identity, develop handicraft and fine art production, advertise tourism…However, most of these factors partially meet the actual requirement.               

There are only 50 out of 500 hotels and motels of 1-4 stars standard in the whole province. This is the reason why Lao Cai always lacks for luxurious rooms in the peak tourism season. Homestay style business of households is still at low quality and price.

Entertainment and commercial services should be strongly developed to attract more tourists and increase revenue for the tourism industry. Moreover, the human staff should be improved in terms of quantity and quality. The increasing in the number of tourists visiting Lao cai shows that the Lao Cai tourism areas have still attracted local as well as foreign tourists a lot. The problem is that the revenue for Tourism Department does not increase symmetrically with currently high potentials.