The United States’ Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has relaxed its travel advice for a number of countries, listing the risk of travel to Laos as very low.

Since March, the CDC warned US travelers to avoid non-essential travel to all international locations, however, it revised its advice last month to include 20 countries where the risk of Covid-19 is “low” or “very low.”

The State Department also lifted its unilateral “Do Not Travel” advisory in accordance with the new list of low-risk countries.

The CDC has a list of 13 destinations where the ‘COVID-19 Risk is Very Low,’ on which Laos appears, alongside the British Virgin Islands, Brunei, Cayman Islands, Dominica, Falkland Islands, French Polynesia, Greenland, Macau SAR, Mauritius, New Caledonia, Taiwan, and Timor-Leste.

Neighboring Thailand appears on the CDC’s low-risk list, while Vietnam now appears on the high-risk list following its recent outbreak in Danang.

Many countries have closed their doors to US arrivals, as the nation leads the world in Covid-19 occurrences.

With 20 confirmed cases, Laos is taking no chances for a second wave of Covid-19. The country has implemented strict preventative measures, including limited immigration, and mandatory testing and quarantine for those who enter the country.

Source: https://laotiantimes.com/2020/08/14/cdc-relaxes-travel-advice-for-laos/

Lao Airlines has been rated one of the top regional airlines in Asia as part of the Tripadvisor Travelers’ Choice Awards this year.

National carrier of Laos, Lao Airlines, is among the Tripadvisor Travelers’ Choice Awardwinners under the Best Regional Airline category.

As part of its efforts to support the recovery of the tourism sector, Tripadvisor has today announced the winners of its 18th annual Travelers’ Choice Awards.

Each year, Tripadvisor puts together all the reviews, ratings, and saves that travelers share from across the globe and uses the information to spotlight the best.

This major award program recognizes the favorite hotels, restaurants, and airlines of travelers around the world, with 4,817 unique businesses celebrated in 2020.

With over 8.7 million businesses listed on Tripadvisor, winners have been determined based on the consistency and quantity of the millions of comments, feedback, and ratings received on Tripadvisor in 2019, before the Covid-19 pandemic.

Lao Airlines shared its top regional airline status with THAI Smile Airways, Air Astana, AIR KBZ, Azerbaijan Airlines, Bangkok Airways, Druk Air, Royal Brunei Airlines, Skymark Airlines, Starflyer, and Vistara.

The top review shared by Tripadvisor for Lao Airlines was by Tripadvisor user Mike1946, which read,

“EXCELLENT FLIGHT, AND SERVICE AND SPOTLESSLY CLEAN PLANE.”

“Although only a short flight it was an excellent one, with a spotlessly clean plane, excellent service from the crew. No delays, and very good check-in and check out.”Lao Airlines appointed Mr. Khamla Phommavanh as its new president in April, with a handover ceremony held at Lao Airlines headquarters.It is expected that Mr. Khamla will steer the airline through the Covid-19 crises, and revamp and revitalize the airline as international flights begin to restart.

Source: https://laotiantimes.com/2020/08/04/lao-airlines-among-tripadvisor-award-winners-for-best-regional-airlines/

Lao Prime Minister Thongoun Sisoulith has advised the Ministry of Information, Culture, and Tourism to use its time wisely in refurbishing and upgrading tourism sites in preparation for the country’s reopening after the Covid-19 pandemic.

The PM made the recommendation as he chaired the government ordinary meeting session held by video conference on 23 April.

With the tourism sector in almost complete shutdown due to the pandemic, the PM’s suggestion is in line with advice given by the National Economic Research Institute (NERI), which submitted a report suggesting the government promote greater investment in tourism.

The paper by NERI advised the government to use tourism downtime wisely by investing in the sector in preparation for future tourism by upgrading tourist attractions and boosting services to ensure they meet international standards.

According to some estimates, Laos’ Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is expected to rise by only 3.3 percent in 2020 – the lowest rate in three and a half decades.

Tourist sites nationwide have been temporarily shut down, with international borders closed and flights grounded. Employees across the tourism sector are finding themselves unemployed or working one month on and one month off at best.

According to NERI, earnings of over USD 450,000 were lost during the first two months of this year when visitors from Laos’ major markets, China and Thailand, dropped by 16 and 5 percent, respectively.

Tourism is a key driver of the economy in Laos, making up some 13 percent of the country’s GDP.

The country has 1,314 officially listed natural sites, 591 cultural sites, and 294 historical sites, according to the Vientiane Times. Of these, 809 were operational at the beginning of this year, with a further 587 tourism sites under development.

The Lao Hotel and Restaurant Association, representing the country’s 637 hotels, met with Deputy Prime Minister Sonexay Siphadone last week to discuss the situation and find potential solutions.

Source: https://laotiantimes.com/2020/04/28/prime-minster-thongloun-advises-preparing-tourism-sector/

We Are Social and Hootsuite have released their joint annual global digital overview report for 2020, detailing global statistics for digital, mobile, and social media use.

According to the latest report, the number of people around the world using the internet has grown to 4.54 billion, an increase of seven percent compared to January 2019. Social media use has grown to 3.80 billion, while more than 5.19 billion people around the world now use mobile phones.

Laos

According to the report, 79% of the population in Laos now has a mobile phone, with internet penetration standing at 43% of the population. Unsurprisingly, social media use in Laos directly correlates with the rate of internet penetration, also standing at 43%.

Internet speeds average 25.54 Mbps in Laos, with a year-on-year increase in the speed of fixed internet connections by 68%.

While the Lao population is said to have increased by 1.5% year on year, the number of mobile phone connections have increased by 1.3% between 2019 and 2020, while the number of internet users has increased by 6.5%, and the number of active social media users increased by twelve percent.

Web traffic in Laos is dominated by mobile phones, at 56.4%, while 42.2% of web traffic was downloaded to laptops and desktops, with only 1.5% being accessed by tablet computers. No data was provided for other devices such as video game consoles.

Interestingly, under the report’s mobile internet reference, the share of social media users accessing via mobile phones was 100%.

Social Media Use

According to the report, the total number of active social media users in Laos was 3.10 million, or 43% of the total population. The number of users increased by 12% between 2019 and 2020, with 100% of users accessing social media by mobile phones.

Facebook‘s advertising purportedly reaches 56% of the population, rising by 7.4% in the last quarter. The platform was accessed via mobile phone by 99.6% of the population, with only 0.4% of the population accessing the social media platform by desktop or laptop computer. 6.3% of users accessed Facebook via both phones and computers, with 93.3% accessing Facebook via mobile phone only.

Female users make up 46% of Facebook accounts in Laos, while male users make up 53.6%.

Instagram sees less popularity than Facebook in Laos, with only 200,000 accounts reachable by adverts on Instagram, equal to only 3.8% of the Lao population, with 64% of users being female.

Twitter follows Instagram with only 167,000 accounts reachable by adverts, making up only 3.2% of the Lao population, 63% of which are female.

According to the report, there are 110,000 Linked-in accounts based in Laos, making up only 2.5% of the country’s population. 44% of these are female, and 56% are male.

Mobile Phone Use

According to the report, Laos has some 5.68 million mobile phone connections, with 96% of connections under a pre-paid model. Of these, 66% of mobile connections are broadband (3G – 5G).

Laos scores 43.93 out of 100 points under the GSMA Mobile Connectivity Index, which measures the performance of 165 countries against key enablers and drivers of mobile internet adoption, including mobile network infrastructure, affordability of devices and services, and ability of relevant content and services.

Android enjoys the largest share of web traffic from a mobile device at 71.9%, while Apple IOS devices see a 27% share of web traffic in Laos.

Source: https://laotiantimes.com/2020/07/09/digital-2020-report-on-laos-released-internet-mobile-and-social-media/