Pilgrimages attract more tourists

HCM City (VNA) - Although the fifteenth day of the first lunar month when the most
important religious rite will be held annually, has not yet arrived, pilgrimage
tours to pagodas in Vietnam have attracted a large number of tourists, according to
Tran Hung Phong, deputy director of Net Viet Tourism Company.

He said that pilgrimage tours this year began earlier than in previous years in
order to meet the demands of tourists. The number of tourists increased about 15
percent over last year.

One representative of the Hanoitourist Company said that 150 tourists booked
pilgrimage tours to Perfume Pagoda (Chua Huong) on the first day of the Lunar New
Year, which fell on January 26.

According to Vietravel, the company also took many groups of tourists to visit Yen
Tu Pagoda in the northern coastal province of Quang Ninh and Ba Chua Xu Temple
in the southern province of An Giang .

Some other travel companies also introduced tours to pagodas nationwide for 12-14
days at a price of 8 million VND-12 million VND (457-686 USD) per tourist.

Many companies combined different activities in the pilgrimage tours.

For example, in tours to Ba Den Mountain in Tay Ninh province, tourists not only
visited many pagodas and temples, but also traveled to Moc Bai Border Gate in order
to go shopping in the duty-free shop and enjoy the proivnce's specialties.

Moreover, Nguyen Nhu Hoa, director of the Quynh Giang Tourism Company, said that the
number of people who rented cars or took a bus to visit pagodas rose by 25 percent
against last year. This led to a 20 percent increase in the price of car rentals
compared to time during the rest of the year.-Enditem