Vietnam could benefit from Bali bombing

Vietnam could benefit from Bali bombing

Agence France-Presse, Hanoi

Vietnam expects to welcome more international tourists in the
wake of the devastating bomb blasts on Indonesia's resort island
of Bali that rocked Southeast Asia, officials said Monday.

"With a world of so many upheavals, especially after the bomb
blasts in Bali, the Philippines and the hostage seizure in
Moscow, there is a possibility that more tourists will head to
Vietnam", Nguyen Van Tuyet, a spokesman for the Vietnam Tourism
Administration, told AFP.

"The country could exceed its target to attract 2.5 million
international visitors and 12 million domestic holidaymakers this
year."

From January to October, more than 2.17 million tourists
visited Vietnam, pouring US$1.27 billion into the communist
country's coffers, a 13.3-percent increase over the same period
in 2001.

Visitors were most likely to hail from China, Japan, the
United States, France or South Korea.

There was also a large increase in visitors from neighboring
Southeast Asian states and from European countries, in addition
to the traditional French or German tourists.

Vietnam was to establish tourism promotion offices in France
and Japan in November and to soon sign an agreement on tourism
cooperation with Japan and Malaysia.

The communist state was recently ranked by the Political and
Economic Risk Consultancy (PERC) as the safest Asia-Pacific
country for business.

A report from PERC said as Vietnam does not have a sizable
Islamic population of its own, it would be hard to imagine al-
Qaeda -- responsible for the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on the United
States -- trying to launch any attacks here.

A Southeast Asian terror group with believed ties to al-Qaeda
is suspected of involvement in the bombings on Bali, which left
nearly 200 mostly foreign tourists dead Oct. 12.

In ten months, Vietnam has licensed 17 foreign-invested
tourism projects with a total capital of $133.2 million.