Visitors will have the opportunity to explore various tourism forms available in Vietnam such as ecotourism, countryside tourism, sea tourism, adventure tourism and cultural tourism as well as its special culinary, said the Vietnam National Administration of Tourism (VNAT) on October 21, 2008.

Information updates on a series of major tourism events to be hosted by the country in 2009, including the ASEAN Tourism Forum (ATF 09), the Da Lat Flower Festival and activities in the lead up to the 1,000th anniversary of Hanoi-Thang Long will be available at the annual fair.

Worthy of note is the ATF 09 that will be held in Vietnam for the first time, expecting to draw 1,500 foreign delegates, including those from 400 travel firms in North America, Europe, Asia and Australia.

The future event is seen as a valuable chance for the country to introduce its land, people and culture to international holidaymakers and partners.

According to the General Statistics Office, Vietnam welcomed 315,000 foreign tourists in September, bringing the total number in the first nine months of the year to 3.3 million, up 5.8 percent over the same period of 2007. China topped the list of foreign tourists to Vietnam, followed by the Republic of Korea.

The seminar, co-organised by the Vietnam National Administration of Tourism (VNAT), the Vietnam Airlines (VA) and the Japan Association of Travel Agents (JATA), aims at building an action plan and discusses a tourism development programme to bring visitors to the two countries this year.

Participants focused their discussion on the difficulties and challenges for the tourism sector caused by the world economic recession.

At the seminar, the VNAT and the VA announced their promotion and discount programmes for tourists coming to Vietnam this year, especially Japanese visitors.

The seminar also aims to introduce Vietnam’s tourism potentials such as landscapes, festivals and cultural and architectural works to make the country become one of 10 most popular tourism destinations in the world.

Vietnam consider some West European countries and Japan potential tourism market, the VNAT said.

On this occasion, Khanh Hoa Province also introduced the JATA its Nha Trang tourism area, one of the country’s famous landscapes.

Following the results of research carried out during period 2004-2008, the unique historical value of the Thang Long Royal Citadel was confirmed by the discovery of various connected archeological layers, reflecting the continual succession of dynasties involved in the construction of the citadel.

The archeologists and historians working at the site have recently discovered structural modifications dating back 1,300 years, with the activity of each ruling dynasty reflected in an array of archeological designs.

They also unearthed millions of ancient artifacts, including porcelain items originating from China, Japan and West Asia, reflecting cultural and economic exchange between Thang Long citadel and other countries across thousands of years of history.

Documents arguing the royal citadel’s case for recognition as a world cultural heritage site have arrived in Paris for consideration by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).

Along with tourist arrivals by road, those visiting Halong Bay by sea have surged very rapidly recently. In the first ten months this year, Halong Bay welcomed 183 foreign cruise ships, with nearly 120,000 foreign tourist arrivals.

Some well-known cruise ships such as the StarCruise, the CostaCruise and the Nautica become frequent visitors to Halong Bay.