A high-speed canoe speeds up, pulling along a parachute flying above the Bai Chay coast and Halong Bay. That’s the beginning of a parachute-pulled canoe adventure into the World Heritage Site from the sky.

Forty-five top-performing hotels and travel companies received the 2008 Vietnam Tourism Award at a ceremony held in Hanoi on July 2. Initiated a decade ago, the annual award has become the most prestigious prize granted by Vietnam’s tourism industry.

Global hospitality services corporation Accor will cut its upscale Novotel hotel-room rates in Viet Nam by half to attract more business, a company executive said recently.

The People’s Committee of central Danang city has issued policies to support projects to develop boat tourism on Han River and several other local rivers.

The central province of Binh Dinh entices nature lovers with its diversity of coastline, mountains, rivers, swamps, lakes, islands, fields, countryside villages and traditional festivals.

International visitors to Vietnam in June estimated 279,150 arrivals. Totally, international visitors in the first half reached 1,893,605 arrivals, 19.1% lower than those in the same period of year 2008.

The Vietnam Railway Corporation said that Vietnam worked with Nanning (China) to propose a 50 percent decrease in fares on the Hanoi – Nanning international passenger train. The proposal was given in a recent survey at Dong Dang Station (Vietnam) and Ping Xiang Station (China).

Defying the gloomy portrait of travel painted by the global economic downturn and the A/H1N1 flu pandemic, the tourism industry has launched a series of promotional campaigns to recover foreign markets. The Vietnam National Administration of Tourism is pushing ahead with its programme of discount tours named “Impressive Vietnam”.

As many as 31 troupes of performers and artists from 24 ethnic minority groups in Phu Yen flocked to a festival of culture, sports and tourism on June 30 to prepare for the National Tourism Year that the central province will host in 2011.