Ninh Binh (VNA) – The northern province of Ninh Binh will haveopportunities to promote its tourism potential as a cultural, sport and tourismfestival will be held in the locality later this month.

Held by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, the event is part of theprogrammes organised to mark 1,050th anniversary of Dai Co Viet, the firstfeudal state of Vietnam.

A wide range of cultural activities are scheduled such as photo exhibitions, amateurcheo (traditional opera) performances, and various culture and sportactivities.

Local Trang An Landscape Complex, recognised by the UNESCO as a World Heritagesite in 2014, together with other renowned heritages like Ha Long Bay, PhongNha Ke Bang National Park, and gong cultural space in the Central Highlands, amongothers, will be nudged closer to the visitors at the festival through the “Goingthrough the heritages of Vietnam” photo exhibition.

Also, the exhibition, with 100 gorgeous photos, will feature stunning naturallandscapes, architecture, historical and cultural relic sites, as well as typicalcultural characteristics of ethnic groups across the country.

Located about 90 kilometres south of Hanoi, Ninh Binh is known as “Ha Long Bayon Land”, given its limestone mountains rising out of paddy fields. The mostfamous local attraction is the Trang An Landscape Complex with a total of 40 tourism spots of historical, cultural, artand natural vestiges including 20 recognised as national heritages.

In UNESCO’s words, "Trang An is a resplendent complex of limestone karstpeaks which are permeated with valleys, including submerged ones, andsurrounded by steep, almost vertical cliffs".

Together with other famous sites in the provincesuch as Tam Coc Grottos and Van Long Lagoon, the Trang An Landscape Complex wasalso used as a location for the movie Kong: Skull Island, one of thebiggest Hollywood blockbusters of 2017.
The locations opened to tourists last April.

The province has been listed asone of the 50 best spots to visit in 2018 by US travel site Insider.

Ninh Binh is striving to become one of the tourism hubs of Vietnam by2020 and to turn tourism into a spearhead industry of the local economy by2030. This is the goal of the province’s master plan on tourism developmentuntil 2025, with a vision to 2030.

Ninh Binh looks toattract 1 million foreign arrivals and 7 million domestic visitors by 2020, 1.5million and 9 million by 2025, and 2.1 million and 11.2 million by 2030.Meanwhile, tourism revenue is expected at over 4.2 trillion VND (179.7 millionUSD), 11.8 trillion VND (504.8 million USD), and 27 trillion VND (1.15 billionUSD), respectively.

Under the plan, the province will turn Ninh Binh city into the main tourismcentre while Tam Diep city and townships in Hoa Lu, Gia Vien, Nho Quan, Yen Mo,Yen Khanh and Kim Son districts will be developed into supporting centres.

The Trang An Landscape Complex and the Kenh Ga – Van Trinh national touristarea will continue to be improved to deserve their national status. Sixprovincial tourist areas and more places of interests will also be formed inthe coming years.

To realise this plan, Ninh Binh is set to ask for the Government and relevantministries’ permission to apply some special preferential policies to attractinvestment to tourism.

Provincial authorities also called on the Ministry of Culture, Sports andTourism to further include local tourism information in promotion programmesfor Vietnamese tourism and support Ninh Binh in training human resources,expanding markets and products, and protecting the environment.

According to the provincial Department of Tourism, Ninh Binh welcomed more than7 million visitors and earned over 2.5 trillion VND (107 million USD) from thisindustry in 2017, respectively rising by 9.5 percent and 43 percent year onyear.

In the last eight months, over 6 million vacationers chose Ninh Binh as theirdestination, helping the province gain 2.3 trillion VND (98.4 million USD) intourism revenue, up 5 percent and 18.8 percent from the same period last year,respectively.-VNA