Le Hoang Yen, general director of the company, said that these kiosks were be installed at Tan Son Nhat International Airport, shopping centers, office buildings and other commercial venues frequented by visitors. Each kiosk has a touch-screen computer to allow people to search for information with ease.

“We offer a database about tourist attractions, tour routes as well as information about tourism services, restaurants, shopping centers, entertainment venues, and other services of 24 provinces and cities across the country,” she said.

The information for visitors is mainly in English, with some in Vietnamese. The company is completing the database to offer information in both languages in the coming time.

The Vina Media will update the information every month, every three months and upon the service providers’ requests.

“Each kiosk costs around US$5,000. We are offering information free of charge for service providers to promote their services at the moment but will call them to buy advertising spaces,” Yen said.

The company currently has some tourism information kiosks in Danang, Hanoi, and HCMC. It has plans to build such kiosks in other tourism localities across the country.

The photos of Sapa, a hilltop town located in Lao Cai Province, capture the area’s fascinating landscapes and the culture of the H’Mong, Dao, Tay, Day, Kinh and Xa Pho ethnic minorities who live in the region.

Yellow-terraced fields at harvest time, spring peach blossoms, snow on tree branches and grass, young smiling girls, festivals and colourful costumes are all vividly depicted.
Loc has also focused his lens on the red-headed crane, a rare species of bird living in Tram Chim National Park in the Dong Thap Province in the Mekong Delta.

Proceeds from the exhibition will be donated to the Nguyen Dinh Chieu School for the Blind Children in HCMC, and the photos will be presented to the Lao Cai Museum.

Minh Loc (Nguyen Minh Loc) was born in 1937 in Dong Thap’s Cao Lanh District, and is a member of the Vietnam Artistic Photographers’ Association.

Since 1975, he has participated in 49 solo exhibitions. He won first prize in the Moscow News Contest in 1968, the silver medal in the Iraq Photo Contest organized by the International Journalists Association in 1978, and the grand prix from the Trade Union Council of the Soviet Union in 1978.

In 1990, he received a prize for excellence from the Red Cross and Red Crescent of the Soviet Union.

The exhibition, jointly held by the Vietnam Union of Friendship Organisations (VUFO) and the Hanoi Department of Culture, Sport and Tourism is just one of activities being held to mark the 55th anniversary of the city’s liberation day on October 10 and the 10 years since UNESCO recognised Hanoi as a City for Peace. The event is also to celebrate Hanoi’s 999th founding day.

Philipe Chaplain is the first foreigner to create a website containing photos of Hanoi’s Old Quarter in the past.

He has also competed at the annual international contest on Thang Long-Hanoi since 2006 and won first prize in 2008.

The hand-embroidered picture is 4m-long, 3m-wide and 167.5kg weight. Especially this numbers multiplied together will make 2010, the year of the 1000th birthday of Thang Long - Hanoi.

The picture has made from October, 2006 by nine skilled artisans of XQ Embroidery Workshop in Dalat City, Lam Dong Province. The center image of work is pure lotuses which represent Vietnamese cultural spirit. They are mixed with ancient quarters and pagodas. In the sunrise, shape of cranes look like manifestation of ancestor’s soul with sound of gongs. The winding Red River represents Thang Long – Hanoi and Vietnamese nation’s aspiration.

After the picture is being finished in September, 2010, a picture procession is going to be organized from Dalat City to Nha Trang, Danang, Hue, Vinh, Ninh Binh and stop in Hanoi. The stretch of road for the procession totalled 1000km.