Hue opens Golden Tourism Week

HANOI, 27 March (VNA) - A variety of promotions have been launched for the first period of Golden Tourism Week in the imperial city of Hue, which runs from March 26 to April 1. Tourists will be offered a 50 percent discount on tickets to watch daytime Hue Royal Court Music performances- which has been named by UNESCO as Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. Group of 10 visitors will receive a 20 percent discount for visiting the city’s heritage sites while students will get free tickets for sightseeing. Meanwhile, if visitors buy tickets to visit the Imperial Palace and the royal tombs of Khai Dinh and Minh Mang, they will get free tickets to enter Thieu Tri and Tu Duc tombs and Hon Chem temple. Launched in 2012, the week aims to popularise the local heritage among tourists, drawing more visitors to the city ahead of the forthcoming Hue Festival 2014. Two similar weeks will be held later in the year. Participants can also join exhibitions displaying antiques and traditional costumes under the Nguyen dynasty (1802-1945). In the first quarter of this year, the central province of Thua Thien Hue welcomed 650,662 tourist arrivals, up 2.3 percent against the same period last year. The tourism sector earned over 621 billion VND (29.43 million USD) in revenue during the reviewed period, a year-on-year rise of 5 percent. This year, the locality expects to welcome as many as 3 million holidaymakers, including at least 1.2 million foreign arrivals. In 2013, Vietnam received 7,572,352 international tourists, a 10.6 percent rise over 2012, bringing in 200 trillion VND (9.4 billion USD) for the state coffers.-VNA