Momentum for tourism

According to Mr. Nguyen Van Phuc, Director of the Bureau of Tourism, National Tourism Year - Hue 2025 is a national and international cultural economic social and tourist event combined with Hue Festival 2025. This event is also associated with the 50th celebration of the liberation of Thua Thien Hue and other anniversaries of the country welcoming the fact that Hue becomes a centrally-governed municipality.

In the National Tourism Year and at the Hue Festival 2025 there will be dozens of programs and events with the opening ceremony and the firework show on the occasion of the 50th celebration of the liberation of Thua Thien Hue as the highlight. The event is intended to take place in late March 2025 in Hue City. 

Looking back at the National Tourism Year 2024 in Dien Bien, we can see that the event did become a momentum for tourism not only of Dien Bien but also of the whole northwest region. There were approximately 169 programs and events, including the 13 national programs and events organized by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism and other national ministries, departments and branches. 

Tourist agencies launched lots of travel programs exploring the landmarks of Dien Bien Province and the vicinity. As a result, Dien Bien and areas in the Northwest had opportunities to introduce their specialties and typical tourism products that tourists had never known before. 

Or before that, in 2023, the success of the National Tourism Year called  Binh Thuan Green Convergence contributed greatly to the overall success of Vietnam tourism in 2023. For the first time, the Binh Thuan province welcomed more than 8.5 million visitors with a total tourist revenue of more than VND23,000 billion, nearly doubling the revenue in 2022 and enrolled itself in the list of the 9 provinces and cities which had the highest tourist revenues in the country.

According to the leaders of the Bureau of Tourism, after the COVID-19 epidemic, to stimulate tourism in the whole country, activities in the National Tourism Year in 2025 will contribute to increasing the number of both domestic and international tourists, recovering tourist activities in the new normal condition, taking steps to make tourism the main economic sector for Hue and making Vietnam a prominent destination of the world in general and Hue one of the big tourist centers of the country and the region.

In order to become “the year of Hue”

At the meeting with Thua Thien Hue Province about organizing the National Tourism Year Hue 2025, Mr. Ho An Phong, Deputy Minister of the Department of Culture, Sport and Tourism came up with an interesting idea that since 2025 is the year in which many big events take place in Thua Thien Hue, activities of the National Tourism Year should be arranged properly to be connected with important activities of the province to make the year 2025 become “a year of Hue.”

According to Deputy Minister Hồ An Phong, Thua Thien Hue is among key provinces on the tourism map of Vietnam with strengths in culture and heritage tourism. From the experience learnt from the organization of the National Tourism Year in 2012, Hue ought to do it even better to attract tourists to the city. Not only promoting Hue as a destination, Hue should develop festival tourism, designing festival tours to meet the need of tourists, contributing to increasing the number of visitors to Hue.    

According to Phuc, the series of events are intended to showcase special characteristics of Hue culture, land and people with exciting profound practical activities in relation to other cities and provinces across the country. Each activity will be well designed with specific programs and a priority to highlighted fascinating creative programs which can connect and spread.

“The events will be arranged scientifically and creatively in harmony with other important events of the province so that 2025 will become “the year of Hue.” The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism also intends to organize Day/Week of Hue Culture to promote Hue not only in the country but also in the world,” said Phuc. 

According to Mr. Nguyen Thanh Binh, Standing Vice Chairman of the Provincial People's Committee, developing tourism is not the story for Hue only but from that it will spread to the entire potential Central region and the whole country. Thua Thien Hue will take advantage of the connection with the local governments of other cities and provinces, with entrepreneurs and with transport facilities and tourist facilities such as airports, seaports, etc., to create values, contributing to developing the tourism of Hue in particular and of the Central and the whole country in general.