From the first quarter of 2017, a high-quality train will be put into use on the Ha Noi - Lao Cai route and vice versa to serve travellers who want to connect to and from Lao Cai, Sa Pa, Bac Ha and other destinations of the Northwest region.
The information was announced in a recent workshop on connecting railway with exploiting products of the 2017 National Tourism Year in Lao Cai and the Northwest, co-hosted by the Lao Cai provincial Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism, Lao Cai Tourism Association and Ha Noi Railway Transport Joint Stock Company (Haraco).
The high-quality train will reduce travel time to 6 hours for day-time itinerary and 7 hours for night-time route from Ha Noi to Lao Cai and vice versa. Carriages’ interior decoration will be upgraded with carriages serving tourists' demand for entertainment and food, ensuring food safety and hygiene.
In addition, Haraco will also arrange 16-seat cars to take tourists from Lao Cai station to hotels and vice versa, with price at VND35,000 for one way.
From the start of the year, the Ha Noi - Lao Cai railway route served nearly 500,000 passenger arrivals, in which 200,000 were foreigners, making up about one third of the total holidaymakers to the city.
Lao Cai expects to greet about 2.5 million tourists in 2016, grossing a turnover of VND6.3 trillion.