LookAtVietnam – Con Dao Island offshore Ba Ria-Vung Tau province on Wednesday welcomed the first three-star hotel built by Saigontourist Holding Company as a major component of the Saigon-Con Dao resort.

A view of the newly-opened Saigon-Con Dao Hotel, the first three-star facility on Con Dao Island offshore Vung Tau City.

The new hotel is adjacent to an old-fashioned section of 30 villa rooms built in 1930, also within the Saigon-Con Dao resort.

On the occasion of the opening ceremony, the hotel will mark down its room rate by between 20% and 30% for guests on Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Sunday, plus discounts for restaurant services. The promotion program will last one month, from July 1 to July 30.

Nguyen Huu Tho, general director of Saigontourist, said at the opening ceremony that although the number of visitors to the island is smaller than that in other famous attractions, the company still saw the beautiful island as an important destination for development. He said he was confident in the island’s tourism potential.

“We predict that the number of visitors to the island will strongly increase soon,” he said.

Nguyen Thanh Binh, operations manager of Vietnam Air Service Co., or VASCO, told the Daily on the sidelines of the ceremony that the number of visitors to Con Dao is already increasing markedly. The company is operating 13 return flights to the island every week compared with seven flights per week before.

“We increased flights to Con Dao last summer. The growth rate for the Con Dao route is twice faster than that on other routes operated by our company,” he said.

VASCO currently operates air services to Con Dao, Ca Mau, Tuy Hoa and Chu Lai.

Vo Anh Tai, director of Saigontourist Travel Service Company, also highly rated the tourism potential of Con Dao, and said his company was increasingly selling tours for guests to the island every week.

“The island is endowned with primitive forests as well as its historical value so it can attract many tourists,” he said.

Con Dao, 180 kilometers off the coast of Vung Tau, is in fact a group of 16 islands and islets, and is known for historical vestiges relating to the past two wars.

The central Government in 2005 approved a master plan for developing Con Dao into an economic zone with tourism identified as the driving force.

VietNamNet/SGT