Held annually in Sayabouly, a northwest province of Laos, the Elephant Festival draws hundreds of thousands of domestic travelers.
This year’s event took place 17 to 19 February and increased visitor numbers have encouraged the construction of tourism projects and infrastructure upgrades.
Foreign aid from Asian Development Bank (ADB) and German development group, Deutsche Gesellschaft fur Internationale (GIZ); have helped to fund the engineering plans.Upgrades to highways and additional border checkpoints are some of the works slated to be completed.“We are working on upgrading local checkpoints to international status.
Talks are under way with Thai authorities in Uttradit province and there are discussions to open a checkpoint in Phayao province,” said Sayabouly PTD director, Mr Sangviene.Roads are being upgraded and should be ready for cars by 2014.Of the 100, 000 visitors to this year’s Elephant Festival only 1000 were international travelers.
