Khanh Hoa gets bumper tourism crop on Tet

With careful preparation, Khanh Hoa province's tourism industry got big win during the Lunar New Year holiday of 2024 when welcoming 206,000 visitors, with tourism revenue estimated at more than 959.1 billion VND.

Many programs marking Vietnamese Tet

This year's Tet holiday, the province has organized many activities for residents and tourists to enjoy and celebrate the nation's traditional Tet holiday. Nha Trang City People's Committee has organized the Spring Flower Festival at Yen Phi Park and Children's Park; coordinated with Khanh Hoa Culinary Culture Association to organize the festival "Happy Tet Nha Trang 2024" at Phu Dong Park to introduce the traditional cuisine of Tet holiday of Khanh Hoa people as well as Vietnam...

Tourists watch dragon dance at Vinpearl Harbour on the first day of Tet.

Hotels, resorts, and tourist destinations in the province also have good preparations to welcome guests. 4-5 star accommodation establishments and tourist destinations have made decoration and focused on organizing many events and programs for tourists to celabrate the Lunar New year such as buffet party welcome the new year, lion dance to welcome the new spring, lucky money at the beginning of the year, calligraphy gifts, music shows, folk games...
With the desire to preserve the unique cultural features of Vietnam, VinWonders Nha Trang organized the Hon Tre spring market to bring visitors unique and interesting Tet experiences. Truong Son craft village has thousands of pots of brightly colored apricot flowers, roses, and sunflowers for visitors to enjoy spring. The craft village also introduces a 63m long dragon (symbolizing 63 provinces and cities) with a body with 54 segments (symbolizing 54 ethnic groups), curving S-shaped map of Vietnam. The dragon shines brightly at night. 

Tourists playing folk game at Champa Island Nha Trang

Champa Island Nha Trang tourist area organizes spring-opening lion dance with colorful spring dance performances, lucky money gods, monkey circus, folk games, outdoor sports... Hotels and resorts in Bai Dai area (Cam Lam district) such as Alma, Ana Mandara Cam Ranh, The Anam... also organized many programs imbued with Vietnamese Tet activities such as lion dance, bamboo dance, shuttlecock throwing , ring throwing, sticky rice cake wrapping, lion and dragon performances...

Attracting a large number of visitors

According to the leaders of Cam Ranh International Airport, from February 9 to 13, 300 flights arrived at Cam Ranh International Airport, an average of 65 flights/day, including 25 domestic flights and 40 international flights from Korea, China, Kazakhstan, Thailand... In addition to airways, highway routes from Ho Chi Minh City to Khanh Hoa put into operation in 2023, enable tourists to travel fast by personal car, helping to increase the number of tourists.

On February 14, the number of tourists coming to famous attractions in Nha Trang is very large. On Tran Phu Street, cars lined up towards attractions in the south of the city, such as VinWonders Nha Trang, Nha Trang Tourist Wharf, Oceanography Museum, Truong Son Craft Village... With the opening of Vinpearl Harbour and the return of the cable car route, Vinpearl Nha Trang has become a hot tourist destination. On the morning of the 5th day of Tet, customers lined up nearly 1km long to wait for the cable car to go to Hon Tre Island. According to information from Vinpearl Joint Stock Company, this time, Vinpearl Nha Trang welcomes about 35,000 visitors each day.

A large number of tourists also took tours to visit the sea and islands. “From February 8 to 15, there were more than 39,000 visitors going on island tours on Nha Trang Bay with destinations such as Bai Tranh, Hon Mun, Hon Tam, Coral Bay...” said Tran Van Phu - Head of Nha Trang Tourist Wharf Management Department (under the Nha Trang Bay Management Board). Similarly, during the 7-day Tet holiday, more than 40,000 tourists visited Ponagar Temple, said Nguyen Thi Thuy Hang - Head of the Ponagar Tower Management Board. From the 2nd to the 5th of Tet, Nha Trang Oceanographic Museum attracted nearly 22,000 visitors...

Tourists take tour to visit Nha Trang Bay on the 4th day of Tet.

Although the number of tourists has increased, the security and order situation in tourism is quite good. Tourists coming to Khanh Hoa have experienced the bustling Tet atmosphere, full of traditional cultural colors. On the morning of the first day of Tet, Dinh Van Thieu - Vice Chairman of the Provincial People's Committee along with leaders of the Department of Tourism, Nha Trang - Khanh Hoa Tourism Association, and Cam Ranh International Airport came to the airport to welcome first visitors to Khanh Hoa on the first day of the Lunar New Year.

"Khanh Hoa Province strives to welcome 9 million visitors in 2024, including 3 million international ones, 6 million domestic ones; and get tourism revenue of 40,500 billion VND. The results of of tourism business on the first days of the lunar new year will create favorable momentum for the tourism industry to strive to achieve this year's goals," said Nguyen Thi Le Thanh - Director of the Department of Tourism.

According to a report from the province Department of Tourism, during the 7-day Tet holiday, the whole province welcomed 206,000 visitors, an increase of more than 26% compared to last Tet holiday, including more than 50,500 international visitors and 155,500 domestic visitors. Room capacity of accommodation establishments reached about 79.7%; especially, from the 2nd to the 5th day of Tet, some hotels in the center of Nha Trang City and 4-5 star resorts in the coastal area have more than 90% capacity and continue to be crowded until the 7th day of Tet. The total number of visitors at tourist destinations is estimated to reach more than 473,000 visitors, an increase of 57.2% compared to the Tet holiday in 2023. The increase in the number of guests staying and visiting has helped Khanh Hoa province’s tourism achieve a bumper total revenue of more than 959.1 billion VND.

Thanh Nguyen
Translated by T.T