Facebook’s CEO visits Vietnam

The information that Facebook’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg is visiting Vietnam has heated up information technology (IT) forums. Meanwhile, Facebook Vietnam’s representative has refused to provide detailed information about his schedule in Vietnam.
A reader called VnExpress’ editorial board saying that he recognized the co-founder of Facebook and his girlfriend when he met them on December 23. Mark was in usual clothing with jeans, T-shirts and sportswear. After visiting the Hoa Lo Prison in the central city of Hanoi, he dropped into a Vertu mobile shop and Levis’ fashion shop before returning back to the hotel.

The Facebook’s owner was very friendly, but his bodyguards tried to prevent any attempts of people to take pictures of him.

VnExpress quoted its own sources as saying that Mark Zuckerberg chartered a flight from Bangkok in Thailand to the Noi Bai airport in Vietnam on December 22. He has been granted visas to enter Vietnam from October 12 and the visa will be valid for two weeks.

As such, the information that Mark is now in Vietnam has been confirmed, but people still keep busy making wild guess about what hotel he is staying. On Facebook, a lot of people wrote that they wished to meet Mark one time or obtain his signature. Some people believe that he is staying in a five star hotel near the Hoan Kiem Lake, possibly Hilton or Sofitel Metropole.

The trip to Vietnam by Mark Zuckerberg has been kept secret, like the ones to China and Thailand late last year.

Vietnamese mass media believes that the trip to Vietnam is not a business trip, but just a trip on Christmas holiday. Some sources have said that he would go to a famous tourism site in Vietnam, which could be the Con Dao Island.

Meanwhile, Huynh Kim Tuoc, the representative of Facebook Vietnam, though having affirmed that the boss of Facebook is in Hanoi, has declined to make comments about the information, saying that he has not been assigned to provide the information on the issue.

The fact that a young billionaire of the famous technology group chose Vietnam as the destination for the Christmas holiday serves to be a good opportunity to popularize Vietnam’s tourism. In Vietnam, Facebook has become the tendency of young people, therefore, the news that Facebook’s boss visits Vietnam has made them very excited.

To date, Facebook has 4 million members in Vietnam.

Buu Dien has quoted its sources as saying that during the stay Vietnam, Mark would have a meeting with Nguyen Trong Khoa, the founder of thatlac.com.vn which aims to help the people who lost each other in the past, to reunite. With the idea, he was invited to visit the headquarters of Facebook in February 2011.

Khoa was a marketing director of FPT (the General Corporation for Financing the Promoting Technology). However, in 2009, he left the group and opened a shop that sells specialty food of his home Binh Dinh province in HCM City.

After returning from the visit to Facebook, Khoa has been spending his time on popularizing Vietnam’s tourism potentials to the world. He decided to register the international domain name binhdinhtourist.com to advertise his home province. When registering, he realized that a lot of international domain names had not been registered.

This prompted Khoa to become the “tycoon of domain names” in Vietnam when he is owning 700 international domain names relating to the tourism industry, such as vietnamtravelgate.com, baoloccoffee.com, gialaicoffee.com, baoloctea.com, bacthaitea.com, phuyentourist.com, binhdinhtourist.com, halongfestival.com, nhatrangfestival.com, phuyenoceantuna.com, phanthietfishsauce.com, binhdinhfishsauce.com.

In the latest news, Mark and his group of nine members spent a night on the Ha Long Bay, which has been recognized as one of the new natural wonders of the world. The Facebook’s CEO rowed a kayak himself to make an excursion on the bay and then visited some caves of the bay.

A representative of the Quang Ninh provincial local authorities was present on December 25, at the Hon Gai wharf to present the young billionaire a bucket of flowers, welcoming him to the Ha Long Bay.

Some sources said before going to Ha Long Bay, he and his girlfriend paid a visit to the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum in Hanoi.

On December 25, Zuckerberg went to Sapa, a famous destination in the northenr mountainous province of Lao Cai.
VietNamNet