An Australian low-cost airline and a Canadian luxury resort and casino developer have launched two ambitious projects that aim to revolutionize Vietnam’s fast-growing tourism industry.
Jetstar, the budget offshoot of Australian carrier Qantas, teamed up with Vietnam’s Pacific Airlines to launch Jetstar Pacific on Friday, setting the stage for a dogfight with state-run Vietnam Airlines.
The following day Canadian developers broke ground on what they say will become Vietnam’s premier destination, a US$4.2 billion resort and casino strip near southern Ho Chi Minh City, scheduled to kick off in late 2010.
Between them, the two projects push forward a tourism industry that has grown strongly since the country emerged from post-war isolation in the 1990s to accept a trickle of backpackers.
Vietnam now aims to boost its domestic and international tourism industry — which has grown into one of the country’s five top economic sectors — to take on Southeast Asian neighbors such as Thailand and Malaysia.
Vietnam last year received 4.2 million foreign visitors, 16 percent more than in 2006. The World Travel and Tourism Council ranks it as No. 4 on its list of the world’s fastest growing travel destinations.
Visitors from China made up the largest group last year, followed by South Korea, the US, Japan and Australia.
Jetstar Pacific — at a lavish Hanoi launch gala on Friday, featuring Aussie marketing glitz, dance shows and lots of dry ice — promised to shake up Vietnam’s aviation sector.
“As Vietnam’s first low-cost, value-based airline, Jetstar Pacific will change air travel in Vietnam by making it more affordable for more people to fly,” said Jetstar Pacific chief executive officer Luong Hoai Nam.
The airline now has four Boeing 737s, with four more to come this year, and plans to add 30 Airbus A320s by 2014 with the option of drawing in additional Jetstar aircraft from the regional fleet.
Jetstar’s CEO Alan Joyce said the carrier entered Vietnam — an economy of 86 million people with a decade of growth more than 7 percent — hoping to “tap into a huge untapped market as the economy grows.”
“We felt that if you get your timing right you could be the biggest brand in Asia,” he said. “Vietnam is a very important part in that jigsaw puzzle.”
Vietnam, where many early visitors were put off by state-run hotels and the stodgy service, has now embarked on building up a string of luxury hotels in major cities and seaside areas to cash in on the high-end tourism sector.
International hotels are starting to crowd the “China Beach” area near Danang, and major resort plans are on the drawing board for the southern island of Phu Quoc, which lies off the Cambodian coast.
Toronto-based Asian Coast Development Ltd (ACDL) hopes to trump them all with the Ho Tram Strip of resorts and “Las Vegas-style” casinos in Ba Ria-Vung Tau Province, 80km southwest of Ho Chi Minh City.
“This is going to be the largest development of its kind in the history of Vietnam,” ACDL chairman Michael Aymong said.
“We’re building five major resorts, two full-scale casinos, a Greg Norman golf course, a celebrity tennis facility, a marina and a Dolphin Quest marine habitat, where families can swim face-to-face with dolphins,” he said.
The first phase will include two hotels with 2,300 rooms, retail areas and a convention center, and the entire 169-hectare stretch is scheduled to be finished within a decade.
Vietnam bans gambling for its citizens but allows foreign passport holders to visit casinos and use the betting facilities of major hotels.
Aymong said he could not comment on what Vietnam’s government may do but added: “I imagine that the government will examine and consider allowing Vietnamese to gamble in the next two or three years.”
For now, he said, “we’re targeting the Chinese, the Koreans, the Japanese, the Australians and the Russians.”
He said the casino and resort strip would be a family-friendly destination with a strong environmental theme and complement — rather than compete with — Macau.
“This is a different type of product,” he said. “It’s a destination resort. Our real competition is going to be Singapore.”
ROLLER-COASTER RIDE: More than five earthquakes ranging from magnitude 4.4 to 5.5 on the Richter scale shook eastern Taiwan in rapid succession yesterday afternoon Back-to-back weather fronts are forecast to hit Taiwan this week, resulting in rain across the nation in the coming days, the Central Weather Administration said yesterday, as it also warned residents in mountainous regions to be wary of landslides and rockfalls. As the first front approached, sporadic rainfall began in central and northern parts of Taiwan yesterday, the agency said, adding that rain is forecast to intensify in those regions today, while brief showers would also affect other parts of the nation. A second weather system is forecast to arrive on Thursday, bringing additional rain to the whole nation until Sunday, it
CONDITIONAL: The PRC imposes secret requirements that the funding it provides cannot be spent in states with diplomatic relations with Taiwan, Emma Reilly said China has been bribing UN officials to obtain “special benefits” and to block funding from countries that have diplomatic ties with Taiwan, a former UN employee told the British House of Commons on Tuesday. At a House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee hearing into “international relations within the multilateral system,” former Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) employee Emma Reilly said in a written statement that “Beijing paid bribes to the two successive Presidents of the [UN] General Assembly” during the two-year negotiation of the Sustainable Development Goals. Another way China exercises influence within the UN Secretariat is
CHINA REACTS: The patrol and reconnaissance plane ‘transited the Taiwan Strait in international airspace,’ the 7th Fleet said, while Taipei said it saw nothing unusual The US 7th Fleet yesterday said that a US Navy P-8A Poseidon flew through the Taiwan Strait, a day after US and Chinese defense heads held their first talks since November 2022 in an effort to reduce regional tensions. The patrol and reconnaissance plane “transited the Taiwan Strait in international airspace,” the 7th Fleet said in a news release. “By operating within the Taiwan Strait in accordance with international law, the United States upholds the navigational rights and freedoms of all nations.” In a separate statement, the Ministry of National Defense said that it monitored nearby waters and airspace as the aircraft
Taiwan’s first drag queen to compete on the internationally acclaimed RuPaul’s Drag Race, Nymphia Wind (妮妃雅), was on Friday crowned the “Next Drag Superstar.” Dressed in a sparkling banana dress, Nymphia Wind swept onto the stage for the final, and stole the show. “Taiwan this is for you,” she said right after show host RuPaul announced her as the winner. “To those who feel like they don’t belong, just remember to live fearlessly and to live their truth,” she said on stage. One of the frontrunners for the past 15 episodes, the 28-year-old breezed through to the final after weeks of showcasing her unique