Artistic and floral creations will be on display, bringing colour to a 600-metre long street in the centre of Hanoi from Dec 28, three days before the festival officially begins to kick off the New Year’s celebrations. The five-day event, which will take place in Dinh Tien Hoang Street at Hoan Kiem Lake (Sword Lake), will gather purveyors of flowers and floral artisans from Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City and Lam Dong province’s Da Lat city, as well as craftsmen from Hanoi’s traditional villages.

According to Nguyen Thi Hoa, deputy director of the Vietnam Culture and Art Exhibition Centre, some 5,000 flowerpots and 20,000 cut flowers will be used for decoration at the event. Works of art will be created from flowers, or from a combination of flowers and traditional products, such as bird cages, wind bells, masks, drums and unicorns, Hoa said.

Two prominent works, a 9-metre fan made entirely of flowers and a 50-metre pottery street, a reproduction of 200 tiled-roof houses in the Old Quarter, are expected to be recognised as Vietnamese records during the event.

The festival has been organised as the opening event in a series of activities to mark the 1,000th anniversary of Thang Long – Hanoi.

(Source: VietnamPlus)

The number of international visitors to Vietnam in comparison with previous years is decreasing, the growth rate accounts for only 1%, tourism made hundreds of products at a discount. However, in many hotels, many people are not sure that the project is feasible or not.

“The discounts also cause immediate difficulties for tourism, but if we do not have a promotional strategy, in the future though we want to have foreign tourists to reduce cost but threre will be no one any more,” Mr. Nguyen Manh Cuong, Deputy of Vietnam Tourism have said at the meeting recently. Mr. Cuong also said that reduction strategy may be extended in the coming year to help Vietnam’s tourism to be recovered.

Vietnam Tourism expect that in the beginning of 2009, they will officially publish a package promotion tour for foreign tourists and officially introduce to the travel companies, partnerships and foreign media in the ASEAN Tourism Forum (ATF). It is expected that they will select 15-20 major travel enterprises to construct more than 100 promotional tours committing the discount rate of 30-50%.

However, General Director of Majestic Saigon Hotel, Mr. Tao Van Nghe, said: “When applying hotel discount, we must consider the revenue gains, hotels can only register to participate, but commiting at the rate of 30-50% is so difficult. “

Representatives of Rex Hotel – Mrs. Mac Kim Thuy Huong – confirmed that: “The plan is suggested by Vietnam Tourism, that has put us to the commitment for implementing. Because this is the common strategy. However, we will select one of the suitable markets to commit discount applying while ensuring revenue for the hotel.”

“If travel companies do not agree to discount, hotels or a group of business partners do not participate, they will make the package discount tour incompleted”, Mr. Cuong emphatized.

Beside building product promotion system, Vietnam Tourism also proposed a series of methods to cope with the situation of tourism in Vietnam during economy crisis, such as: promoting the implementation of tourism advertisement campaign for Vietnam promotion, inviting delegations like Famtrip and Presstrip to visit the country, promoting the new destinations in Vietnam, attracting visitors from a number of important market, promoting the domestic markets and so on.

A meeting to discuss urgent measures to attract international tourists was hold by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism on Dec. 10, 2008, in Hanoi. Minister of Culture, Sports and Tourism Hoang Tuan Anh presided at the conference.

Attending the conference are leaders of Vietnam National Administration of Tourism (VNAT) and representatives of the Ministry of Planning and Investment, Ministry of Finance, High Command of Border Guard…; General Director of Viet Nam Airlines and a number of foreign representative offices, leaders from 12 tourism departments in the cities and provinces which have big tourism potential and representatives of many travel companies, hotels, and other tourism-related companies; leaders of departments of the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism and VNAT; many journalists, reporters of the central and local magazines and televisions.

By the end of November, 2008 Vietnam had received only 3.9 million foreign tourists, making it hard for the country to achieve its target of welcoming 4.8-5 million foreign visitors this year. Face with this situation, tourism-related sectors need to have immediate solutions to attract more tourists. The solutions will be implemented in 2009.

The delegates proposed several solutions for the short and long-terms in order to solve the difficulties and obstacles which effect directly or indirectly to the process of attracting, serving tourists come to Vietnam.

Stimulating domestic demand is one of the most important solutions to mitigate the global financial crisis’s impacts on tourism. Other measures include promotional activities, tax policies, and human resources and infrastructure development.

(Source: Tourism Information Technology Center)

The UNESCO Vietnam association has announced the launch of two new awards, named “Vietnam’s cultural and tourism heritage” and “In support of the preservation and development of Vietnam’s cultural heritage”.

The association’s General Secretary Nguyen Xuan Thang said on Nov. 27, 2008 the annual awards were launched in response to Vietnam’s Heritage Law and UNESCO’s Convention concerning the protection of the world cultural and natural heritage.

They aim to encourage people to discover and vote for Vietnam’s tangible and non-tangible cultural heritages, and recognize the work of organizations and individuals who have contributed to the preservation and development of them.

They also offer a chance for localities and ministries to highlight and promote Vietnam’s unique culture, tourism and heritage.

(Source: Vietnamtoursim.com)