The northernmost province Ha Giang is organising the first buckwheat flower festival in Dong Van’s Ancient Quarter from November 13-15.

The event will include cultural performances, a buckwheat wine festival, a photography exhibition and workshops on buckwheat products.

According to Deputy Chairman of the Provincial People’s Committee Tran Quy Duc, the festival aims to promote the cultural value of the Dong Van Karst Plateau, including the beautiful image of buckwheat in full bloom.

The event is expected to promote the province’s tourism potential and services with a view to attracting more investments, he added.

The buckwheat (Fagopyrum Esculentum) plant grows in clusters of small pinkish white flowers and produces triangular shaped edible seeds.

The ethnic H’Mong cultivate two crops of buckwheat every year, which bloom between April and May. The flowers are sensitive to sunlight, changing their colour from white in the early morning to pink in the afternoon.

Buckwheat in full bloom is a spectacular sight, drawing flocks of tourist to Ha Giang and its neighbouring mountainous areas, such as Lao Cai province.

Nha Trang Sea Fest expects to lure 150,000 tourists

The 2015 Nha Trang Sea Festival themed “Peace and Creativity” is set to take place from July 11- 17 in central Khanh Hoa province.

With more than 50 cultural, sporting, and tourist activities, the event expects to receive 150,000 foreign and domestic tourists.

At a press briefing on June 29, provincial leader said that this year’s major activities will feature the seas and islands through which to reflect on the city’s peacefulness.

An exhibition featuring legal and historical evidence of Vietnam’s sovereignty overthe Hoang Sa (Paracel) and Truong Sa (Spratly) archipelagos will be planned.

Seminars on the marine economy will be held along with programs highlighting the culture of the local coastal region, their self-motivation, and creativity. Other outstanding activities include beach cleanups and a salangane nest festival.

The 7th biennial festival, which began in 2003, covers cultural, arts, sports, and tourism activities bearing traditional and modern features and honoring the characteristics of the sea and islands as well as the potential of Nha Trang city and Khanh Hoa province as a whole.

Work starts on Phu Yen tourism complex

New City Vietnam Company Ltd broke ground of a 1 billion USD tourism complex along the coast of Tuy Hoa city in the south central province of Phu Yen on June 27.

The complex will include hotels, villas, resorts, along with yatch ports and sea entertainment areas.

It is a wholly foreign invested project, with investors from the US, Australia, the Republic of Korea and Taiwan (China), according to government portal chinhphu.vn.

Local authorities said this was a key project that would help promote tourism and drive socio-economic development in the province.

Lao Cai province betters tourism services

The northern province of Lao Cai is improving the quality of its tourism services and developing transport infrastructure towards becoming a striking destination in the northern mountainous region.

In the second half of this year, local authorities plan to work with the Steering Committee for the northwest region to build a national tourism plan for 2017 and bolster tourism cooperation with eight northwest provinces.

The locality will coordinate with the management board from the EU, the French Aquitaine region and the Vietnam National Administration of Tourism to realise signed cooperation agreements on supporting tourism development and human resources training.

The province is also speeding up the implementation of transport infrastructure projects, especially in popular tourism sites such as Sa Pa, Bac Ha and Bat Xat while connecting transport networks between the province and its neighbours, upgrading several highways and expanding inter-provincial roads.

The provincial People’s Committee is also directing relevant departments and sectors to address issues such as public restrooms, environmental sanitation and waste treatment at tourist sites.

According to the local Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism, the province welcomed over 1 million visitors in the first six months of 2015, a year-on-year rise of 15 percent.

The tourism sector fetched nearly 2.3 trillion VND (103 billion USD) in revenue in the period, a yearly increase of 15 percent.

Sa Pa, Bac Ha, Bat Xat and Muong Khuong are the most popular destinations with 20-30 percent growth in the volume of visitors.

First half: Nearly 1.6 million tourists visit Thua Thien-Hue

Close to 1.6 million tourists arrived in the central province of Thua Thien-Hue in the first six months of this year, including 572,000 international visitors.

The tourism sector raked in 1.4 trillion VND (67 million USD) in revenue, a year-on-year rise of 2 percent.

The 2015 Hue Traditional Craft Festival, hosted on the occasion of national public holidays (April 30 and May 1), drew more than 100,000 visitors, up 22 percent from the previous year.

The Hue Relics Preservation Centre has to date welcomed nearly 1.1 million visitors, half of whom are from abroad, Director of the centre Phan Thanh Hai said.

Besides launching the Golden Tourism Week programme on April 22-28 and June 15-21, the centre has organised a wide range of activities to serve visitors such as music performances, royal parties and exhibitions.

The province plans to improve tourism infrastructure, such as completing construction of the Dien Bien Phu road to serve tourism in the southwest part of Hue imperial city – a UNESCO-recognised world heritage – while upgrading relic sites in the Hue Relics Preservation Centre, the Revolution and History Museum and the Ho Chi Minh Museum.

The locality will also improve the quality of charter flights from Bangkok to Hue and vice versa and open at least six direct flights between the two sides. Other plans will implement programmes to promote tourism investments in Hong Kong (China) and at the Korea World Travel Fair (KOTFA) and the Japan Association of Travel Agents (JATA) tourism expo.

VNA/VOV