The annual Sa Pa Tourism Week will take place from April 29 to May 4 in Sa Pa resort town, northern Lao Cai province.

A wide array of festivities, including traditional music and dance performances and folk games of ethnic minority groups, are set to get underway at the Ham Rong mountain eco-tourism site.

The week also covers cultural festivals of the Mong, Dao and Giay ethnic minority peoples and tours of their villages, a bonsai exhibition, and a trade fair introducing novelty items produced by local residents in the region.

The Lao Cai provincial People’s Committee has launched information on the event in the Vietnamese, English and Chinese languages on its tourism e-portal to attract more international visitors.

Trinh Xuan Truong, Chairman of Sa Pa district People’s Committee, said preparatory work for the week has been completed, adding that hotels and guesthouses have been fully booked.

Truong stressed the need to ensure food hygiene and safety and increase the quality of tourism services to meet the increasing demand of both local and foreign tourists during the peak season.

Last year, Lao Cai welcomed more than one million visitors, or over 20 percent higher than the yearly set target. The province is expected to receive 1.2 million arrivals as the Noi Bai-Lao Cai Highway is scheduled to open to traffic in June 2014.-VNA