Stay longer in Laos

VIENTIANE  Lao PDR’s Ministry of Information, Culture and Tourism says it hopes to extend tourist length-of-stay in the country to 10 days by 2020.
The ministry’s department of tourism marketing director general, Saly Phimphinith, told the Vientiane Times that the average length of stay is now eight days, but the long-term objective was to raise it to 10 by 2020 by developing more tourism sites.
Neighbouring countries supply the largest number of tourists, but they are mostly day trippers, or they stay for a maximum of two nights. Day trippers are not counted as tourists under the definition of the UNWTO.
Laos enjoys a much longer length of stay mainly due to European visitors who stay for two weeks. However, the number of tourists from Europe is 15 times smaller than those from the ASEAN region and 18 times smaller than those from the Asia-Pacific region, the report said without giving any actual figures.
inside no 1Another challenge for Laos is to attract more high-end tourists to generate more revenue for the national economy, which in turn would help alleviate poverty.
Lao Association of Travel Agents vice president, Saleum Khamphenvong, was quoted as saying that high-end tourists come mainly from Europe, America and Japan.
He added that in Vientiane, some high-end tourists like to stay two or three days, and around four or five days in Luang Prabang a World Heritage town, while they will stay three days in Champassak province.
In 2013, foreign visitors to Laos reached more than 3.7 million, but the number of high-end tourists represented a market share of just 20%.

sourced:ttrweekly.com