Reenactment of Ban Soc ceremony – the celebration to officially issue the calendar under the Nguyen Dynasty, held periodically at the end of the lunar year. (Photo: VNA) ThuaThien-Hue (VNA) – The central Thua Thien-Hue province has been drawing in touristswith this year’s version of the Hue Festival for 2022, promoting its imageafter two years of the COVID-19 pandemic, announced Nguyen Thanh Binh, ViceChairman of the provincial People’s Committee.
The pandemiccaused many small and medium travel firms in the province to closeand forced many labourers and tour guides to seek other employment. However, with the reopening of the country’s tourism sector and the year-round activities of Hue Festival 2022, the numberof visitors to the province increased sharply in April and May and shouldcontinue to rise.
Manybusinesses are motivated to upgrade facilities and recruit human resources tomeet the needs of new business.
Nguyen ThuyVan, owner of Sunny homestay in Hue city’s Vy Da ward took advantage of the lockdown period to upgrade her accommodation, and was ready to welcomeguests right away when restrictions were lifted. After tourism was re-opened, her facility has been fully booked on holidays and during eventsfor the Hue Festival 2022.
Theprovincial Department of Tourism has worked with enterprises to organise aseries of interesting events such as Hue Festival Day - Culinary Capital and theHue Lotus Festival in June.
The hot airballoon festival is upcoming at the end of June, Hue Hip Hop Festival in July andthe Hue Lion Dance Festival in September and the Healthcare Tourism Week inNovember. These activities provide a diverse set of events and a festive atmospherein Hue.
Travelbloggers, influencers, and key opinion leaders (KOLs) are invited to join theevents in a bid to lure more young people to the central province and itshistoric tourism products and cultural life of locals.
Culinary artist Ton Nu Thi Ha introduces royal dishes. (Photo: VNA) Nguyen VanPhuc, director of the provincial Department of Tourism (DoT), said it hascollaborated with airlines from neighbouring countries to open more flights tobring tourists directly to Thua Thien-Hue.
Thedepartment also contacted the Hanoi UNESCO Travel Club to arrange charter trains fromHanoi to Hue city.
Travel firmsthat bring a large number of travelers to the locality will get local supportincluding a reception event, gifts and traditional art programmes atdestinations to create a good impression for tourists, he said.
Challenges
Despite thepositive recovery in the province’s tourism sector, numbers are still downcompared to the same period in 2018-2019. Most travelers are in small groups orfamily tours.
The provincehas welcomed about 600,000 tourists since the beginning of this year, but only 1.7percent was international visitors.
Despite someof the best tourist attractions, the industry failed to take advantage ofrevenue from providing accommodation with travelers staying only a few days inHue city.
According toPhuc, the COVID-19 pandemic has closed several hotels in the area. Othersites have degraded and do not qualify to serve guests, leading to shorterstays with the lack of rooms.
It isnecessary for accommodation establishments, travel agencies and tourismenterprises in the province to improve their quality and prepare humanresources to welcome tourists, he said.
Theprovincial Department of Tourism has acted as a "bridge" connecting a number of tourismcolleges and vocational training institutions with accommodation serviceproviders to offer support at peak times.
At the sametime, the department has also assisted travel firms and hotels to promoteinformation on tours as well as attractive new products for tourists toencourage them to stay longer when coming to the province.
The Hue Festival 2022 is scheduled to take place from June 25-30 with eight major programmes and many sidelines events. The highlight of the festival is an art programme that opens up the festival at the Ngo Mon Square on June 25 night.
The provincial Department of Tourism said about 200,000 tourists are expected to join activities within the festival.
Hue is home to five UNESCO-recognised world cultural heritages. These are the Complex of Hue Monuments (a world heritage site), “Nha nhac” or Vietnamese court music (Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity), the woodblocks of the Nguyen Dynasty (part of the Memory of the World Programme), the imperial archives of the Nguyen Dynasty (part of the Memory of the World Programme), and the Literature on Hue Royal Architecture (part of Documentary Heritage in the Memory of the World Programme)./.
