Da Lat Flower Festival 2007 is an economic-cultural-tourism event of national level and international features and will be held in Da Lat City, Lam Dong Province from December 15-21 with the theme “Da Lat Flower, I Love You!”
Local authorities have been preparing for Da Lat Flower Festival, with a lot of diverse and colourful programmes and activities. Especially, the organisation board emphasises key programmes, such as The international flower exhibition with theme of “Integration and development of Da Lat flower trademark” to be held at the city’s flower garden to introduce famous flower areas in the country, with the attendance of 70 enterprises and other countries of Netherlands, China, Japan, Thailand, New Zealand and Argentina. The trade and tourism exhibition and investment promotion seminar, including more than 700 displays by domestic and regional enterprises, will be also organised on this occasion. The People’s Committee of Lam Dong Province will hold investment promotion conferences calling domestic and foreign investors to the Western Highlands. The impressive and colourful opening ceremony for Da Lat Flower Festival 2007 on December 15 will be directly broadcast on VTV1. The Street Festival “Flower and Light” will be opened with the “Cong Chieng” (Gongs) performance by more than 100 performers, 500 public actors and actresses, and the march of between 40 and 60 flower carriages. Along with the performance of flower carriages, the Street Festival will also introduce eight typical flowers of Da Lat, creating a charming atmosphere with the colour of flowers, light and music; eight small stages at four areas around Xuan Huong Lake will offer music and light shows. The final Miss Vietnam contest programme will honour the beauty of soul, talent, and intelligence of Vietnamese women, contributing to preserving the culture heritage of each ethnic group and spreading the tourism image of Vietnam.
In addition to key programmes, cultural and artistic events will allow tourists to enjoy the special products of Lam Dong Province and Da Lat City. For example, the Tea-Flower-Dinner Wine Fair will attract the attendance of famous tea and wine producers of Da Lat and the rest of the country. At the Wine Festival Night, a march in the form of a street carnival will be organised at the centre of Da Lat City, with the attendance of thousands of local people and tourists. Besides, when attending the programme of the Wine Recollections, tourists will experience a romantic space while enjoying the best dinner wines of Da Lat’s famous wine brand names, and can meet producers and learn about dinner wine processing.
This Festival will also have the programme Flower Wedding, scheduled to be directly broadcast on HTV, “Happy Journey” for 114 domestic and foreign couples. The weddings will be held at the most beautiful destination in Da Lat, formerly the Palace Hotel, now the five-star Sofitel Dalat Palace. The number of 114 has a significant meaning: it marks 114-year anniversary of Da Lat City. Couples arriving at Da Lat for this festival will also have the chance to enjoy a very special programme: Rose and Chocolate Festival Night with the performance of Segway cars on Da Lat’s streets, and a series of art and dance performance programmes, games on the theme of love, and singers and artists performing immortal love stories. Couple Bicycle Festival is a procession of beautifully decorated couple bicycles around Xuan Huong Lake, with the attendance of famous artists, domestic and foreign tourists and couples in the flower weddings.
Of course, Lam Dong Province and Da Lat City will welcome visitors on this occasion with many unique flower artworks such as flower tower, flower gate on stops on the national highway 20 and right on Da Lat area. Flower gardens within the city will be beautifully decorated and designed by theme, with tours to the city’s attractions and the unique decorations for the flower festival. The organisation board of Da Lat Flower Festival 2007 is determined to improve the quality of festival programmes. Based on experience from the first festival, this festival will be more diverse, with no identical programmes during the festival to encourage tourists to attend many programmes when arriving here.
Flower Street is a long programme during the festival; tourists here can steep themselves in an atmosphere of flower art, street performance (guitar, saxophone and violin), Body Art, and flower street coffee. The Flower dance festival is the venue for beautiful dancing couples from many provinces and cities nationwide.
The antique vehicle show, themed “Antiques, flower and artists” will display all kinds of famous antiques such as Volkswagen, Vespa, Velosolex and Mobilette, and select most beautiful motorbikes for auction to raise capital for a charity fund. The programme will also have a parade of motorbike and artists. The festival will also offer the Da Lat – Sky – Sunlight and Flower programme with stunt airplanes, and boats on Xuan Huong Lake.
The Coffee Festival will introduce tourists to Da Lat’s local people and the special coffee of Da Lat and Lam Dong. The coffee festival will take place outdoors. The Vietnam-Japan Da Lat Marathon 2007 will involve 200 Japanese and 200 Vietnamese athletes in marathons of 10 kilometres, 21 kilometres, and 42.195 kilometres.
The opening ceremony on the theme “Da Lat Flower - I Love You” honours traditional flower villages, contributors to the development and popularisation of the Da Lat flower trademark. The Street festival, with a street circus, street hiphop, and street masquerade, will liven the opening ceremony night. The Street music and fashion programme with the theme Da Lat - Flower Romanticism will have the fashion performance on the street with five collections of domestic famous fashion designers in combination with music performances and dancing.
The final Miss Vietnam contest programme has so far received the registration of more than 500 contestants from 15 ethnic groups, seeking the diadem.
Da Lat City is making many preparations for the festival. Da Lat Flower Garden, the venue for the International Flower Exhibition, is being rearranged and planted with new displays to colour the festival. Together with urban decoration, repair of water drainage systems, pavements, roads, and flower planting on the streets, Da Lat is launching a contest of providing flower seeds to encourage offices, unions and people in Da Lat to plant flowers, making Da Lat a big flower garden. The street Le Dai Hanh with cherry apricot blossoms will be carefully cared for to make sure the flowers are in full bloom for the Da Lat Flower festival 2007.
Trung Dung
Vietnamese
