Tourists will be spoiled for choice with a wide selection of cultural and tourism events in the country’s popular destinations this April. Following are a couple of festivals worth being included in summer travel plans.

A view of the UNESCO-recognized World Heritage site Halong Bay in Quang Ninh Province. The Halong Carnival festival is slated to kick off on April 28 at the Sun World Halong Park

Halong Carnival 2018

The Halong Carnival 2018, under the theme “Ha Long – Heritage, Wonder – Friendly Destination”, will kick off on April 28 at the Sun World Halong Park in Halong City in the northern province of Quang Ninh.

As one of the first activities to start the National Tourism Year 2018 in the province, the festival will feature a host of activities including music, art performances, street parade and fireworks shows.

Pham Ngoc Thuy, director of the provincial tourism department, was quoted by local media as saying that the province will promote tangible and intangible cultural heritages and unique tourism products to spur tourism growth this year.

The province hopes to attract 15 to 16 million tourists, including seven million from abroad, and make total tourism revenue of VND30-40 trillion by 2020, the Vietnam News Agency reports.

Halong City, which is home to the World Heritage-listed Halong Bay, came in 56th in the world’s 100 leading cities in terms of international tourist arrivals, according to the annual Top City Destinations Ranking report released in November last year at the World Travel Market event in London.

Hue Festival

The 10th edition of the biennial Hue Festival is scheduled for April 28 to May 2 in the former imperial capital of Hue.

This cultural event is expected to drive the province’s tourism growth this year as it will take place at a time when the Vietnamese have a four-day national holiday on the occasion of Reunification Day (April 30) and International Labor Day (May 1).

A street carnival, an international food festival and a hot air balloon show, plus traditional court music and dragon boat racing, will be featured during the festival.

The central province looks to woo 4.2 million tourists this year, with foreigners making up 40-45%, and make VND4.2-4.3 trillion in tourism revenue.

Danang Fireworks Show

The central city of Danang will host the Danang International Fireworks Festival (DIFF) 2018 over a period of two months from April 29 to June 30 with bigger spectacles.

The festival, titled “The Legends of Bridges,” is expected to wow spectators by the stories about the well-known bridges depicted by fireworks from the teams of Poland, France, the United States, Italy, Hong Kong, Sweden, Portugal and host Vietnam.

The fireworks festival, which has been named “the Leading Festival and Event Destination 2016” by the World Travel Awards, has served as an opportunity for the city to fuel tourism growth.

The total number of visitors to Danang City last year was estimated at 6.6 million, jumping 19% year-on-year, with international tourists accounting for 2.3 million. The city is eyeing 7.47 million tourist arrivals in all of 2018, including three million foreigners.

Hung King Festival

Those in northern Vietnam should head for Phu Tho Province, where Hung Kings founded the country of Van Lang, the first state of Vietnam, to join the Hung Kings Anniversary festival from April 21 to 25 (from the sixth to 10th of the third lunar month).

The festival features a multitude of traditional and cultural activities evoking long-held customs and ceremonies which have been kept intact for centuries. Revelers can learn about the history of the nation through art performance programs, banh chung (square glutinous rice cake) cooking contest, book fair, and dragon and lion dance.

One of the highlights of the festival is to promote hat xoan (Xoan singing in the northern province of Phu Tho) which made the UNESCO list as the world intangible cultural heritage of humanity last year.

Saigon Times