Tourism
The Lao PDR is one of countries most enriched in natural environments, a wide variety of cultures and ancient archaeological sites. This mix of conditions makes the country attractive to tourists. The Government considers tourism one of its eight priority development programmes and has therefore set guiding policies for the development of the industry. These include widening economic and cultural relations and cooperation with foreign countries; promoting the tourism industry with the aim of gradually improving the living conditions of people in all ethnic groups and promoting domestic production in all fields; promoting the unique arts and culture of the Lao PDR, disseminating the customs, traditions and courageous history of the Lao people and preserving historical and ancient archaeological sites and antiquities as tourist attractions; creating jobs and generating and distributing income for people of all ethnic groups; and setting up good friendly relations with all countries in compliance with the policy of the Government on tourism promotion.
In addition, the Government has widened the policy on tourism, particularly creating favourable conditions for entering and leaving the country, allowing the issuing of visas at Lao Embassies and Consulates abroad and international border checkpoints. As more parties, including the state and private sectors and people, increasingly understand the importance of tourism for the Lao PDR and cooperation with foreign countries and international organisations widens, the number of tourists visiting the country has been increasing rapidly. In the first year that the country was opened to foreign tourists, 1991, the number of tourists that visited the country was 37,613. In 2004 this number reached 894,806, an average annual increase of 27.61 percent. This impressive increase has been due to the conflux of many factors including Lao PDR’s hosting of the ASEAN Tourism Forum and ASEAN Tourism Fair in 2004, which was an historical event for the country and had a large impact on the nation’s tourism. Tourism creates opportunities to publicise Lao PDR to the world, particularly to disseminate policies of the Government on socio-economic development and show the world the country’s readiness to be the new tourism destination of ASEAN and the region. It is projected that by 2010 the number of tourists visiting the Lao PDR will reach 1.5 million.

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