Tourism ministry reviews success of Visit Laos Year 2024
The Tourism Marketing Department of the Ministry of Information, Culture and Tourism convened a meeting on Monday to assess the success of the Visit Laos Year 2024 tourism promotion programme.
The meeting was chaired by the Minister of Information, Culture and Tour-ism, Mrs Suanesavanh Vignaket, who said the government considers tour-ism to be a key economic pillar.
Tourism stimulates the development of associated sectors by creating jobs and income, and brings in a large amount of foreign exchange to Laos.
This contributes to the country’s overall socio-economic development and helps to reduce poverty levels across all ethnic groups in line with the de-velopment vision of the Party and government, the minister said.
Following the government’s endorsement of the Visit Laos Year 2024 initia-tive, which was officially announced in November last year, the programme was rolled out under the theme “A Paradise of Culture, Nature and History” and included 79 events in different parts of the country.
Of these, 14 events were organised nationwide and 65 took place locally. All of them aimed to attract visitors and inform people of the many pleasures to be derived from a holiday in Laos, as well as the improved standards of ser-vice and facilities available in the country.
Monday’s meeting was convened to review lessons learnt from the pro-gramme and identify its successes and weaknesses so that tourism officials can respond to the challenges encountered and improve services across all sectors of tourism, the minister said.
It is essential to continue to boost Laos’ reputation as an appealing tourist destination, and consider plans for the next Lao Tourism Year, she added.
More than 5 million Lao and foreign tourists have vacationed in Laos so far this year, with the number of Lao tourists surpassing the target figure by 27 percent, while revenue exceeded US$1 billion, the Prime Minister informed the National Assembly earlier this month.
