Hue Festival, Viet Nam's bi-annual (once every two years) signature cultural series of activities, comes back in 2016 with a focus on the 710-year history of the land. The opening of the Hue Festival in 2014 took place on the Flag Square in the Forbidden City. More than 40 art groups from all five continents came to the festival in 2014. — VNA/VNS Photo Quoc Viet

HA NOI  (VNS) — Hue Festival 2016 will take place from April 29 to May 4 with various culture, sport and art activities.

The festival will celebrate 710 years since the founding of Thuan Hoa – Phu Xuan (now Thua Thien-Hue Province). It will also highlight the province's cultural heritage in the development and integration process. With an aim to uphold traditional values and showcase modernity, Hue Festival 2016 will focus on events in which both people and tourists can take part in and enjoy, according to Nguyen Dung, vice chairman of the provincial People's Committee.

"It's an opportunity to promote an image of Hue - the cultural, heritage and tourism city, the Festival city of Viet Nam," said Dung.

The festival will gather artists from 20 countries with France playing as the main partner.

The troupes include Guangdong Theatre from China, the Cancer band from Denmark, Michal Milczareck Trio from Poland, Della Mae from the US, Hallelujah from Israel, Germein Sisters from Australia and Yun Myung-hwa from South Korea.

Domestic arts companies and street arts troupes will also bring interesting performances to this festival such as the Cleopatra belly dance group from Ha Noi, Giao Thoi band from HCM City and Viet Nam Circus Federation.

Besides, the festival is also a combination of traditional culture, art and tourism activities with great attractions and high community orientation, which will contribute to promoting local socio-economic development, including: Royal Night, Orient Legends, beer carnival, international food festival, old car exhibition, ancient village festival in Phuoc Tich Village, traditional boat race on Huong River and kite festival.

The festival will include several exhibitions featuring cultural icons, traditional games, and specialties from many localities across Viet Nam, thereby providing tourists with a better understanding of the Southeast Asian country.

It will be held in coincidence with the conference of Mayors from member countries of the Forum for East Asia-Latin America Co-operation.

Preparing for lift-off: A magnificent kite flying festival took place at the Phu Van Lau Park in Hue City brought together all kite clubs from across the country. — VNA/VNS Photo Tran Le Lam

Hue Festival is the first contemporary festival in Viet Nam developed from the new concept of festival based on festival models from various cities in the world. As a typical cultural tourism event, which takes place every two years starting from 2000, it brings together excellent arts companies with unique performances from all over the world.

"After eight previous events, Hue Festival has gradually developed to a national scale with international orientation and contributed to building Hue tourism's reputation as well as promoting Viet Nam culture to the world," said Dung.

This will be the first time the festival will be organised on the holiday occasion of Liberation Day (April 30) and May Day (May 1).

"We anticipate the huge number of tourists flocking to Hue City on this occasion and the current number of 2,000 rooms may not meet the demand," said Dung.

"We will join with local travel agents and businesses to upgrade the service quality and satisfy tourists."

Beside attending the festival in the city, tourists can choose to enjoy sightseeing tours and eco-tours to discover local destinations such as Lang Co Beach, A Luoi mountainous region and Tam Giang Lagoon.

Hue Festival 2014 received 200,000 tourists. In this first half of this year, there are 1.6 million tourists come to Thua Thien -Hue. — VNS