Quang Ninh (VNA) – The northeastern province of Quang Ninh willhold 64 cultural, sport, and tourism events towards the goal of attracting 3million visitors in Quarter 4.

Director of the provincial Tourism Department Pham Ngoc Thuy said at a pressconference on October 20 that 30 events were scheduled for October, 20 forNovember and 14 for December.

Notable programmes include Quang Ninh seafood week and One Commune, One Productfair, Binh Lieu ripen rice season, Yen Tu – the Buddhist land in autumn, QuangNinh Ao dai festival, Ha Long national kite festival, among others.

Thuy stressed the province will sharpen focus on the domesticmarket, with priority given to large tourist source markets like Ho Chi MinhCity, southern localities, central and central highlands provinces, andnortheastern provinces where industrial parks and big corporations are located.

The sector has paid heed to developing new tourism products as well as packagetours at competitive prices, while working to ensure good tourism servicequality.

According to the Tourism Department, the province welcomed 5.8 million visitorsduring January-September, only half of the figure recorded in the same timelast year.

Earlier, the province launched a sight-seeingfee discount programme for a range of local destinations between September 9and December 31.

Accordingly, prices of entrance tickets for destinationson Ha Long Bay, the Quang Ninh Museum and the Yen Tu relic and scenic complexare reduced by 50 percent.

Notably, entry into destinations in the bay is free ofcharge on Vietnamese Women’s Day (October 20), the mining sector’s traditionalday (November 12), Vietnamese Teachers’ Day (November 20), and the founding anniversaryof the People’s Army of Vietnam (December 22).

The programmewas part of the provincial People’s Council’s decision issued on September 8for tourism promotion.

Earlier, thecouncil approved a tourism promotion incentive for 2020 worth about 200 billionVND (nearly 8.6 million USD) during its meeting in May.

Under theincentive, starting from May 15, all visitors, both Vietnamese and foreignerswere exempt from entrance fees to Ha Long Bay, Quang Ninh Museum and thecomplex of Yen Tu monuments and landscapes until the end of the month and onmajor holidays in 2020.

In addition,passengers arriving at the Van Don International Airport receive freeround-trip bus rides to Ha Long and Uong Bi cities until the year's end.

As a result,tourist arrivals have been partly recovered, with the average number ofvisitors to Ha Long Bay per day reached 7,000 in June. As of the end of August,more than 868,000 people visited the bay in the daytime and over 4,000 stayedhere at night.

However, thesecond wave of COVID-19 taking place at the end of July has led to a slowdownin local tourism activites as the number of tourists fell significantly.Hundreds of tourist ship owners registered for a temporary halt of theiroperation until the end of September to avoid monthly business fees of between7 and 10 million VND per ship.

Quang Ninh isendowed with natural advantages for sea and island tourism. It has a coastlineof more than 250 kilometres and more than 2,000 islands and islets whichaccount for two-thirds of the total number in Vietnam.

It is home topopular destinations such as Ha Long Bay, Bai Tu Long, Ha Long Bay NationalPark and some islands.

In particular,Ha Long Bay was twice recognised as a World Natural Heritage site by UNESCO in1994 and 2000. The bay spans 1,553 square kilometres and includes 1,969 islandsof various sizes. It features thousands of limestone karsts and islets invarious shapes and sizes. The limestone in the bay has gone through 500 millionyears of formation in different conditions and environments.

The sitewelcomed 4.4 million holidaymakers throughout 2019, including 2.9 millionforeigners, and raked in 1.23 trillion VND from tourism./.