Hanoi tourism enjoys successful year despite difficulties hinh anh 1Tourists at Hoan Kiem Lake of Hanoi (Photo: VNA)
Hanoi (VNA) – Despite impacts from the COVID-19 pandemic, the number of tourists to Hanoi has so far surpassed the target for the whole year, thanks to the city’s efforts to provide attractive and high quality products.

In late November, Hanoi is full of visitors who enjoy Da quy (daisy) flower season in Ba Vi National Park, and tours in Thang Long Imperial Citadel or Hoa Lo Prison. This manifests the strong tourism recovery and development of the capital city - Asia’s Leading City Break Destination 2022 by World Travel Awards (WTA).

The year of 2022 started with many difficulties for the city due to the pandemic. However, the gap period enabled the city to prepare for the new normal period, with a series of products introduced in the beginning of the peak tourism season on the National Reunification (April 30) and May Day holidays, shortly after Vietnam fully opened the tourism sector.

Outstanding products in the period include the launch of Son Tay ancient fortress pedestrian zone, the upgrade of the pedestrian zone along Trinh Cong Son street, and the cycling tour to explore Bat Trang ancient pottery village.

Various activities were also held during the 31st Southeast Asian Games (SEA Games 31) in the city, leaving a strong imprint of a safe, friendly and attractive destination on domestic and foreign visitors.

Alongside, the city Department of Tourism held many training courses to improve the quality of human resources and enhance the public awareness of developing community-based tourism.

According to Graham Cooke, the founder of World Travel Awards, tourism in Vietnam and Hanoi in particular has recovered strongly with the promotion of its values and identity as well as some breakthroughs.  

In May, the US travel website TripAdvisor placed Hanoi in the 13th position in the 25 most popular destinations in Asia in 2022. It also included the city in the best 25 places for food lovers in 2022.

Director of the Hanoi Tourism Department Dang Huong Giang said that the titles showed the attractiveness of the city tourism, and a chance for the city to affirm its position, image and trademark in the world market.

Hanoi tourism enjoys successful year despite difficulties hinh anh 2Some designs to be showed at the Ao Dai Festival of Hanoi, which is slated for December. (Photo: VNA)
This year, the city aims to welcome 7-8 million domestic tourists and 1.2-2 million foreigners. But so far the city has received 17.02 million visitors, over 5 times higher than that in the same period last year, including 1.27 million foreigners.

To continue its recovery trend, the city has planned a number of activities in the rest of the year with a focus on luring more foreign tourists.

In December, Hanoi will organise an Ao Dai (traditional long dress) festival with the participation of many famous designers and models. This is one of the most important events of the city tourism, which also includes a parade of about 700 women wearing Ao dai.

At the same time, the city will also design more products meeting the demand of foreign visitors, including golf and MICE tourism.

Communications will be promoted to popularise tourist destinations and new tourism products of Hanoi via traditional methods, TV channels at home and abroad, websites and social media sites like Youtube and Facebook, under the themes ‘Hanoi – Travel to Love’ and a safe and attractive tourist destination.

The city will collaborate with embassies and representative offices abroad and the Airports Corporation of Vietnam and carriers to hold tourism promotion events at major markets, as well as welcome delegations of foreign reporters and travel companies in Hanoi.

Hanoi is working to improve the quality of tourism products at heritage and relic sites and craft villages, and compile introduction in five foreign languages of English, French, Chinese, Japanese, and Korean.

Some experts held that due to strong urban development, people have high demand for relaxation at the weekend. Therefore, Hanoi should foster farm tourism and tap into natural values to promote relaxation and exploration tourism.

From a remote area, Ba Vi district has emerged as a bright spot of tourism thanks to its optimisation of local natural conditions and special cultural identities of the Muong and Dao ethnic minority groups./.
VNA