Visitors to Hoan Kiem Lake during Tet holiday.
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Most of the foreign visitors came from China, South Korea, Japan, US, France, Germany, Australia, Malaysia and Thailand. The figure brought the total number of visitors to Hanoi during the Lunar New Year holidays from February 14 - 20 to nearly 375,000, an increase of 13% from the same period last year. The figure included 250,000 domestic travellers, up 6% year-on-year. The local tourism industry expects to earn more than VND1.28 trillion (US$56.5 million ) during the biggest holiday of the year, up 19% year-on-year.
Most visitors flocked to the city’s popular attractions, like Vietnam Museum of Ethnology, Thang Long Imperial Citadel, Huong Son landscape complex (also known as the Huong Pagoda), Ngoc Son Temple in the heart of Hoan Kiem Lake, Van Mieu (the Temple of Literature) and Quoc Tu Giam (the first university in Vietnam) and the Vietnam National Villages for Ethnic Culture and Tourism, which host a series of art performances and cultural activities to celebrate the traditional New Year.
Most notable is the annual Spring Calligraphy Festival which is underway at Van Mieu – Quoc Tu Giam from February 9 - 25. About 63 calligraphers sit in bamboo tents, wearing Ao Dai (long robes), and perform the writing, following the traditions of the past.At the same time last year, more than 1,200 flights ran into Hanoi during the Tet holiday, carrying more than 11,000 passengers. Import-export turnover through the airport in the period was at about US$17.5 million, according to the airport’s customs department report.
