HCM City unveils
seven-day Lunar New Year celebration plans

HCM City authorities
have announced a seven-day celebration of the Tet (Lunar New Year) festival
beginning on January 31.

The celebration will
have six programmes including the usual decoration of Nguyen Hue city Street with
flowers and ornamental trees, with this year’s theme being New Heights.

The aim is to
highlight the city’s efforts to attain higher economic and social achievements.

The Nguyen Hue Flower
Road will open to the public from 7pm, January 31 until 10pm February 6, 2011.
The city’s 24 districts will organise the banh tet (cylindric glutinous rice
cake) Festival. Banh Tet offerings will be made at the Temple for Hung Kings,
the Ho Chi Minh Museum and the Ton Duc Thang Museum.

The streets of Nguyen
Hue, Le Loi, Dong Khoi, Le Duan and Chi Lang Park will be also be decorated with
colour lamps from December 17 to January 4, 2011 to celebrate the Christmas and
New Year season.

Firework shows will
take place at seven sites during the 15 first minutes of the New Year.

The city authority has
assigned Saigontourist Holdings Co again to organise the main festivities in
downtown HCM City during the forthcoming Tet festival that falls in the first
week of February.

Saigontourist
offers promotion for travellers to discover China

The Saigontourist
Travel Service Co has launched a big promotion for travellers to China. The tour
operator is co-operating with Vietnam Airlines to mark down return tour prices
to around US$200 on the occasion of the carrier’s launching a direct service
between HCM City and Beijing in mid-December.

The promotion tours
include a seven-day tour starting December 19 to Beijing, Suzhou, Hangzhou and
Shanghai costing $780 per person, a six-day tour starting December 22 to
Shanghai, Suzhou, Hangzhou and Beijing for $766, and a four-day tour of Beijing
at $442 that departs on December 20, January 13 and January 20.

‘Free and easy’
tours to Thailand, Singapore, Brunei launched

For the Christmas
season, the TST Tourist travel agency has launched its “Free and Easy” tours to
Thailand, Singapore and Brunei for US$200-400. The tours will provide visitors
with greater flexibility during the holiday. They can choose their own travel
times, hotels and holiday activities, TST will help them design their own
itinerary.

Meanwhile, the Lua
Viet Tours have announced a five days-four nights adventure holiday to conquer
the Fansipan peak in northern Viet Nam, culiminating in celebrating New Year’s
Eve on the “roof of Indochina”. The tour, which departs December 29, costs
VND3.7 million per person.

Border province
plans $2 billion 186 ha casino project

The Lang Son
International JSC has unveiled a plan to build a 186ha casino in the northern
border city of Lang Son. In addition to the casino, the complex will include a
50,000sq.m. international shopping centre, three hotel blocks, 300 villas, and
an 18-hole golf course, all of five-star standard.

“The project will be
an important landmark in the Dong Dang-Lang Son Border Gate Economic Zone when
it is completed after 2015,” the company’s general director, Lam Bao Ky, was
quoted by Dau Tu (Viet Nam Investment Review) newspaper, as saying.

Under Viet Nam’s laws,
only foreigners and overseas Vietnamese are allowed to visit and gamble at
casinos in the country.

VietNamNet/Viet Nam News