Hoang Su Phi terraced fields - new national heritage

 

The terraced fields in Hoang Su Phi District in the northern province of Ha Giang, have been recognized as a national heritage site by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism.

The province will hold a certification ceremony on September 16 which will feature traditional art and culture of ethnic people.

The terraces bear witness to centuries of wet rice cultivation by ethnic minorities in Hoang Su Phi, including the Dao, Nung and La Chi, and they have great cultural and historical value in addition to being aesthetically beautiful. The terraced fields cover six communes including Ban Luoc, San Sa Ho, Ban Phung, Ho Thau, Nam Ty and Thong Nguyen.

Local authorities will create projects to preserve the fields and promote their tourism potential.

Source: SGT

 

Hoang Su Phi terraced fields recognised as national heritage

 

According to Ha Giang provincial People’s Committee, the province will organize a ceremony on September 16th 2012 to receive the decision of the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism on recognizing Hoang Su Phi terraced fields as national heritage.
The ceremony will be broadcast live of VTV channel of the Vietnam Television. An exhibition on economic and cultural products in the district will be held on this occasion.
The event aims to preserve the fields and promote their tourism potential.
Hoang Su Phi terraced field is situated on six communes and established hundreds of year ago by labour force of the community and people of La Chi, Dao and Nung ethnic minority groups.
The fields were among the sites recently recongnised by the MoCST as significant parts of the nation’s heritage, including three other landscapes: the Trang An caves in Ninh Binh province, the Pusamcap cave system in Lai Chau province, and the Chua Tien caves in Hoa Binh province./.
 
Source: CPV
 

Int’l yacht festival to be held in Khanh Hoa

The International Yacht Festival intended to take place in the south central province of Khanh Hoa this year has been rescheduled for mid-2013, announced the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Festival on August 7.
Around 250 international and domestic yachts have registered to take part in the four-day event.
They will be on display at an exhibition and join in a parade around the Hon Tre island in Nha Trang Bay.
A series of activities, including a concert about Truong Sa (Spratly) Archipelago, a fund raising ceremony to support Vietnamese fishermen, and other cultural and sporting events will be held as part of the festival.

Source: VOV
 

Ha Long Bay future discussed

Entitled Developing and Promoting the Values of World’s Natural Heritage Ha Long Bay – New Vision, the event was hosted by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism.

The conference also noted disadvantages and challenges that strategists may face in seeking suitable solutions.

More than 150 researchers, and environmental and tourism experts attended the event.

Speaking at the conference, Cultural Minister Hoang Tuan Anh said the increasing number of tourists visiting Ha Long Bay created significant challenges in preserving and developing the country’s most famous tourist attraction.

“Any preservation solutions based on tourism development will be encouraged,” he said.

The provincial Party Committee’s Secretary Tran Minh Chinh said tourism development of Ha Long Bay was crucial to the province’s sustainable economy, thus the “development should connect tightly with environment protection,” he said.

The nation’s Development Strategy 2020 and Vision 2030 has identified Ha Long Bay as attracting millions of domestic and international tourists each year.

Therefore, Quang Ninh has set four main goals, including to locate the development of Ha Long Bay within a national and global context, to develop the tourism trademark of Ha Long Bay to keep it the No1 attraction, to promote it effectively in connection with environmental protection and to raise the awareness of local people and tourists of environmental protection.

Most of the participants shared the same opinion about the beauty of the World’s Natural Heritage site. However, how to develop tourism effectively without negative influences on the environment was a significant issue.

Many thought the awareness of the environment was limited in local people working in the tourism field; tourism and souvenir products lacked diversity; investment, preservation and development did not befit a World’s Natural Heritage site.

UNESCO chief representative in Viet Nam Katherine Muller-Marin suggested the authority urgently control the waste from ships on the bay, otherwise the pollution would affect the marine area and beaches of Cat Ba National Park.

To use a human force to collect rubbish on the bay was not an effective method to protect the environment, Muller-Marin said.

An average 2.5 million tourists, including 1 million foreigners, visited Ha Long Bay every year. Ha Long Bay and some other neighbouring areas in recent years had attracted more than 40 foreign investment projects with a total capital of more than $1 billion.

Significant capital had been invested by numerous domestic and foreign enterprises to develope Ha Long tourism products.

Ha Long Bay future discussed source:  VNS

International festival of Vietnamese traditional martial arts 2012

From 1-3 August 2012, the forth international festival of Vietnamese traditional martial arts 2012 will be held in Quy Nhon City (Binh Dinh Province) by Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism in collaboration with People’s Committee of Binh Dinh Province.
This event aims to preserve and promote unique values of Vietnamese martial arts and create opportunities for domestic and international martial arts delegations to meet and exchange experience.
The festival is expected to attract a large number of martial arts master, instructors, athletes from 40 domestic delegations and 50 international delegations. Performance contents include: performing with bare hands and weapons; competing each other by bare hand, bare hands with weapons, and weapons with weapons.
In the framework of festival, many  other unique activities will be also held such as: hat tuong (classical opera), Binh Dinh folk bai choi festival; Miss Marital Arts contest; Vietnamese traditional martial arts street festival; workshop with the theme "Enhancing Vietnamese martial arts" and establishment of the International Committee of Vietnamese Traditional Martial Arts Federation; photo exhibition of Vietnamese traditional martial arts; Binh Dinh culinary program; tours to traditional martial arts villages; Han Mac Tu – Xuan Dieu’s poetry night…
Especially, during the festival, Organization Board will set up a press center to facilitate for journalists in advertising the event.
Along with the preparation for the forth international festival of Vietnamese traditional martial arts, Binh Dinh Province are also focusing on promoting some specific local festivals (Dong Da victory festival, Go market festival, bai choi festival…) to create new tourism products, attract more tourists to Binh Dinh. In 2011, Binh Dinh welcomed nearly 1.2 million tourist arrivals, up 21% over 2010, of which international tourists was more than 94 thousand arrivals, total tourism revenues reached nearly VND 363 billion. For in the first quarter of 2012 only, total tourists to Binh Dinh was estimated at nearly 420 thousand arrivals, up 29% over the same period of 2011.
Source   :
   (TITC)