Vietnam plans to attract more tourists, creating new resorts targeted especially on golfers. A new luxury resort Laguna Hue, located just an hour’s drive from the international airport of Hue and Danang is scheduled to open by 2012. This seems to be a rather interesting way of “stealing” tourists from neigboring countries.
Seven well-known hotel brands, designed for 2 thousand rooms, a world level golf club, a summer residence, a business center, a spa and entertainment complexes will be located on the territory of the new resort. Tourists will be entertained, not only by playing golf, but also travel to the ancient city of Hue, which is now under the protection of UNESCO, and the commercial port Hoi. In the first stage of construction two hotels, Banyan Tree Hue and Angsana Hue, with 350 rooms, and created a golf course with 18 holes will be built.
A new golf club Montgomerie Links Vietnam, which is designed for golfers of all levels of training, has opened not far from the resort of Danang in August 2009. The golf club with 18 holes is situated on the natural landscape, rich dunes, with views of the Marble Mountains and the South China Sea. The club occupies over 700 thousand square meters of territory. The modern Golf Academy is also located here, where you can learn the sport from professionals from around the world which adds additional boost to the visitors. Construction of a golf club took more than 2 years, and about 54 million dollars was invested.
According to the Vietnamese tour managers, the creation of these golf clubs is justified. After all, the golf tourism in Asia is developing successfully, despite the consequences of global financial crisis. The leaders in this field in the region are Thailand and Malaysia which are the main competitors of this country. The revenue from the sports tourism is about $800 million a year and they increase by 10% annually. Experts believe that the Asian countries are not making right decision betting on elite sport, because apart from wealthy tourists, modern Asian fields have raised interest among sports associations who are seeking new territories for the international competitions.
Let us remind, that according to the statistics provided by the National Agency of Vietnam, for the first 7 months of 2009 the country lost 18,7% of tourists compared to the same period in 2008. Major countries providing tourists to Vietnam, China, South Korea and Japan, showed a decline of 37%. The reason for this decline of interest of travelers to Vietnam is the financial crisis and pandemic “of swine flu”. However, local tour managers do not give up and believe that betting on sports trend in tourism will give further chances in the struggle to attract tourists to Vietnam and will become a great way for the budget fulfilling for this country.
