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Plans are in place to build an airport in Huaphan province to encourage more domestic and overseas visitors to explore the area.
At the moment, not many tourists make it to the province because it’s a two day bus trip from Vientiane.
Surveying for the new airport has begun and it is anticipated that ATR72-500 planes, which can hold up to 74 passengers, will be able to land there.
Visitors prepare to explore the caves in Viengxay district, Huaphan province.
Vientiane residents who go to Huaphan by road joke that they want to return home as soon as they arrive, because they’ve got headaches and are car sick from the long and bumpy journey.
“We believe that if there is air transport between Vientiane and Huaphan province, it will attract more and more visitors,” Director General of the Tourism and Marketing Department of the Ministry of Information, Culture and Tourism, Mr Saly Phimphinith, told the Vientiane Times last week.
The province’s Viengxay district is famous for its caves which harboured revolutionary leaders during the struggle for liberation in the 1960s and 70s. Kaysone Phomvihane, who later became the president of the Lao PDR and is revered as the country’s national hero, spearheaded the revolutionary movement from the caves.
Provincial authorities plan to promote the caves as a top tourist attraction, and it is hoped the area will join Vientiane and Luang Prabang as the third major tourist draw in the country. There are about 500 caves altogether.
“The caves are amazing; it’s incredible to think that so many people lived in them for more than nine years during the Indochina War,” Mr Saly said.
As of 2011, about 13,000 people have visited the caves where Kaysone Phomvihane lived and worked, including 2,800 foreigners, but this figure does not include Vietnamese and Chinese tourists.
Every year more and more tourists and study groups visit the caves.
Last year more than 2.7 million tourists visited Laos, generating revenue of almost US$400 million.
The Ministry of Information, Culture and Tourism is targeting 3.5 million tourists per year by 2015. That number is expected to generate about US$500 million in revenue.
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