Hanoi to impress visitors through beautiful gifts, tourism photos

Hanoi (VNA) - To create a breakthrough in tourism promotion, and contribute to the rapid and sustainable development of Hanoi's tourism industry, the Department of Tourism of the capital city has launched a gift design contest and a tourism photo competition.

The two contests aim to select photos and products that meet the artistic criteria, show a typical, rich and diverse culture, tourism resources, tourist attractions, historical sites, festivals, traditional craft villages, and the culinary culture of Hanoi for dissemination and promotion of the capital city's tourism to both domestic and international tourists.

Entries should show the difference and diversity in materials and colours, and be friendly to the environment, safe to human health, and not deformed or changed by the climate and weather. The organising board prioritizes products that use available materials, are local traditional crafts and convenient for mass production, and have high applicability and reasonable prices.

All professional and amateur photographers, artisans, painters, designers, organisations, enterprises and individuals can participate in the contest held from June 1 to July 31.

The organising board will present awards and display works from September to October.

All individuals and organisations can find out detailed information about the contests' rules on the website of the Department of Tourism (http://sodulich.hanoi.gov.vn) and on the mass media. Entries can be sent to the Hanoi Department of Tourism’s headquarter at 11B Cat Linh street, Dong Da district.

The capital city is making every effort to revive its tourism after more than two years of the COVID-19 pandemic.

About 8.61 million tourists, including some 211,300 foreigners, visited the city between January and June, nearly tripling the figure in the same period last year.

The city's total tourism revenue in the first half of 2022 amounted to approximately 25.2 trillion VND (1.08 billion USD), more than three times the figure in the first six months of 2021.

Local hotels rated 1-5 stars recorded an average occupation rate of over 30% during the period, up 6.11% year-on-year.

The capital city, home to 24 recognised tourist destinations, is offering a series of enticing products to attract tourists given its reopening of the local tourism industry. These include night tours at Hoa Lo Prison and Thang Long ancient citadel; a northern mountainous wet market programme at the Vietnam National Village for Ethnic Culture and Tourism in Son Tay township; and the Hanoi City Tour by double-decker buses. 

In addition, Hanoi has also launched many tourism exhibitions, trade fairs, and festivals.

It is striving to welcome and serve 9-10 million visitors in 2022, including 1.2-2 million international visitors. Total revenue from tourists is expected to reach 27-35 trillion VND.

By 2023, the city is planning to welcome and serve 12-14 million visitors, including 2.5-3.5 million foreign visitors, earning a total revenue from 42 to 55 trillion VND.

It eyes to welcome over 30 million visitors, including 7 million foreigners, by 2025, according to the municipal Party Committee’ draft conclusion on tourism development for 2016-2020 and following years. The visitors are expected to spend more than 130 trillion VND while in the capital.

To that end, Hanoi plans to expand new tourism products based on the potential of each area, in a bid to gradually resume all tourism activities this year in an important step to develop the tourism sector sustainably after the pandemic.

Culinary and heritage tourism as well as MICE, a type of tourism combining meeting, incentives, conferences and events will be promoted in inner districts while spiritual and agro-tourism will be developed in suburban areas.

Such types of tourism including resort and health tourism; community and spiritual tourism will be prioritised in rural areas of the city.

The municipal People's Committee has designed seven main tasks and solutions to develop tourism in adaptation to the new normal, with an emphasis on ensuring safety for both destinations and visitors.

The city will strive to devise unique tourism products to meet visitors' demand, and improve quality of tourism products and destinations linked with heritage sites, relics and craft villages.

Seminars will be organised to train local residents at destinations in knowledge and skills relating to serving tourists. Training classes on community-based tourism will also be held in some districts at the same time.

Hotels and resorts in inner and suburban areas are encouraged to implement promotion programmes as well as services tailored to satisfy tourists' demand for short vacations./.