The tours were suggested by Howard Limbert, an expert of the British Cave Research Association (BCRA).

As scheduled, pilot tours will be held in August of 2013 and in February and March of 2014. After a trial time, the tours will operate officially during the dry season from February to August every year.

There will be two seven-day and six-night tours or three five-day and four-night tours each month. Each tour will comprise a maximum of seven visitors and 15 local porters who will help carry their baggage and other belongings. Visitors will be granted certificate of exploring Son Doong Cave, the world’s largest cave after each adventure tour.

The opening of adventure tours to Son Doong Cave is to develop a special tourist product which will associate cave landscapes with nature, culture and history to create an unique tourist product of Quang Binh tourism, contributing to diversify the forms of tourism and meeting the needs of exploring unique features of Son Doong Cave and affirmed global values of the world natural heritage Phong Nha Ke Bang National Park.

The exploitation of this new tour is required to ensure natural landscapes and reduce a minimum of bad impact to natural environment and cave landscapes in accordance with the sustainable tourism development plan of Phong Nha - Ke Bang National Park, asked the provincial People’s Committee.

Son Doong cave was first discovered in Phong Nha-Ke Bang National Park by a local man named Ho Khanh in 1991 and was then made known publicly in 2009 by a group of British scientists from BCRA.

Son Doong cave is found to have a length of at least 6.5 kilometres. It is estimated to be 200 metres in width and 150 metres in height. The largest chamber of the cave is judged to be 250 metres in height.

According to Howard Limbert, the cave is five times larger than the nearby Phong Nha cave, which was previously considered to be the largest in Vietnam.

Reported by Mai Anh
www.quangbinh.gov.vn