Food Festival comes to Vung Tau Food Festival comes to Vung Tau Vung Tau City in Ba Ria-Vung Tau Province will host a hugely-anticipated food festival from Thursday until Sunday. Through this event, the provincial people’s committee wants to promote food culture with local signature dishes as well as give tourism businesses the chance to show their talents and serve guests. The festival will be held in Trung Trac-Trung Nhi Garden in Ward 1, Vung Tau City with 34 booths. Participants are skillful chefs working in the fields of tourism services, beverage providers and processed food. The opening ceremony will be held at 6 p.m. on Thursday while the award ceremony will take place at 6 p.m. on Sunday.   Coming to the festival, tourists will enjoy delicious dishes served at booths and nightly singing performances. The organizers will offer 11 awards for best cuisine, the most beautiful booth, charming fruit carving, striking fruit display, and awards for those serving the most delicious local food and for the booth which has the most professional serving staff. The organizers hope this festival will become an annual cultural event of Vung Tau City. HCM City Tourism Association offers discount domestic tour packages Ho Chi Minh City Tourism Association and VietJet Air have signed an agreement to run a program that will stimulate domestic tourism. Accordingly, VietJet Air will sell economy class flight tickets at a 49-51 percent discount to 24 travel companies participating in the program. With this fare reduction, along with reduction in price of other services, an overall package tour will cost 30 percent less. VietJet Air will apply reduced fare on seven flight routes from Ho Chi Minh City to Hanoi, Hai Phong, Vinh, Da Nang, Nha Trang, Buon Ma Thuot, and Phu Quoc, offering a maximum of 20 seats on each flight for the stimulus tour program. The program starts from August 15 this year and will last till August 14 next year; but will not be applicable on holidays. Viet Nam, Laos develop luxury resort Vietnamese and Lao companies will co-operate in building a high-end resort on Tuan Chau Island in the northern province of Quang Ninh. A memorandum of understanding (MoU) for the project was signed by chairman of the Tuan Chau Group Dao Hong Tuyen and Somvang Vongvilay, director general of Lao enterprise Chitchareun Corporation in Vientiane last Friday. Under the deal, work on the 4-ha resort will start in October this year. Can Tho City to offer homestay tourism My Khanh Eco-Tourism Company has plans to coordinate with households in traditional handicraft villages to offer Homestay Tourism in the Mekong Delta city of Can Tho. The company will build rooms in 20 local households to provide accommodation for tourists and offer a unique experience of daily life and hospitality in the Mekong Delta Region. Households will earn from the profits and also be able to sell their products directly to travelers. The new service is expected to attract international visitors, promote tourism in Can Tho and help local people economically. 124 tourism companies win Guide Awards The Vietnam Economic Times has announced its 14th Guide Awards will be held at Vinpearl Luxury Da Nang on August 22. The Guide will recognise 124 outstanding travel  businesses chosen by its editorial board and reader votes  as the winners of the 2012–2013 “Guide Awards". The winners include 31 hotels, 40 resorts, six self-contained apartment companies, 24 restaurants and bars, five retail stores and beauty salons, 11 travel companies, and seven sports and entertainment service companies. They were selected according to criteria like product and service quality, environmental consciousness, and civic and community mindedness. Vietnam Economic Times Editor in Chief Professor Dao Nguyen Cat said The Guide promotes the tourism sector’s sustainable and responsible development, helping to preserve the country’s beautiful landscapes and Vietnamese culture. VN Airlines to resume flights to Hue Vietnam Airlines will resume flights to central Hue City from September 20, six months after suspending flights on the route as Phu Bai Airport closed for repairs. It will continue to fly twice a day from Ha Noi and thrice from HCM City. Passengers who have bought tickets to and from Da Nang – which has the nearest airport – from September 20 to November 20 can switch them to Hue for free. Source: SGT/SGGP/VNA/VNS/VOV/ND