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which will only become more polluted
by more and more people going there.”
Kim Megson, an English writer and
editor currently living in Vietnam, said
he could see the positives: “It offers
an easy way up, which is good in so
much as people without much time can
enjoy the often incredible views from
the top on a tight schedule.” However,
he agreed with Marchland that it would
take away some of the magic and add-
ed that he feels there are better ways
to invest money in tourism in the area.
Julio Benedetti, a tourism consult-
ant, believes it will reduce the attrac-
tiveness of Fansipan for many tourists,
especially westerners: “Western tourists
who look for adventure and who want
to visit natural attractions are looking
for wild, authentic, preserved and pris-
tine environments. If you add artificial,
man-made constructions, they will defi-
nitely spoil the natural environment. I
have heard similar opinions from for-
eigners about the lift that was built on
Danang’s Marble Mountain,” he said.
He added: ”It is even worse be-
cause adventure tourists and people
who want to trek believe that the effort
to climb a mountain is the main part of
the journey. They want to enjoy the ef-
fort, the physical activity of doing it. A
cable car is unnecessary for these tour-
ists because they don’t want an easy
way up the mountain and they will not
appreciate that the landscape will be
scarred by this cable-car.”
Benedetti thinks these cable cars
are set up for Vietnamese and some
other Asian tourists, but says it is not
attractive for most foreigners: “It spoils
the experience, because westerners are
not looking for this convenience when
they visit natural attractions, they are
looking to have contact with nature in
the most natural way as possible, and
they want to walk, because they also
consider it healthy to do so.”
Nguyen Van My, director of Lua
Viet Tours, which has organised nu-
merous trekking tours for visitors to
Fansipan, also holds the same opin-
ion and sees the cable car system as
a catastrophe for the tourism indus-
try. “Fansipan’s summit is narrow, so if
thousands of visitors are taken to the
top each day, the scenery there will be
harmed,” My explained.
“The tourism industry should de-
velop tourism at Fansipan in a sustain-
able way, rather than covering it with
concrete structures,” she added.
Nonetheless, the project is under-
way, with Fansipan-Sapa Cable Car
Tourism Service Company, commencing
work on November 2. Eventually it will
comprise three cable lines with 33 pods
capable of transporting nearly 2,000
tourists per hour. The contractor is Dop-
pelmayr, a multinational operator.
Scheduled to complete on Septem-
ber 2, 2015, the cable car will take
tourists to the mountaintop in just 15
minutes, while those who climb face a
trek of two days. Apart from the cable
car system, the project owners are de-
veloping an 18-hole golf course, food
outlets, a luxury resort and other enter-
tainment facilities.
BOILING POINT
Left: The lofty peaks that surround
Sapa; Right: The Ba Na Hills cable car
is currently the country’s longest;
Above: tourists near Fansipan’s peak