Sa Pa crowded with tourists in New Year’s first days
Sa Pa town in the northern province of Lao Cai welcomed about 35,000 visitors in the three-day calendar New Year holiday, a slight rise over the same time in 2016.
Lao Cai (VNA) – Sa Pa town in the northernprovince of Lao Cai welcomed about 35,000 visitors in the three-day calendarNew Year holiday, a slight rise over the same time in 2016.
According to Vice Chairman of the Sa Pa district People’sCommittee Nguyen Ngoc Hinh, the visitors, mostly from southern and centralregions, enjoyed the romantic space of the “cloudy town”, with a temperature ofaround 7 degrees Celsius.
To deal with the overload in accommodation, this year, Sa Pahas developed homestay tourism, which allows tourists to experience daily activitiesof locals and explore their culture and customs, he said.
He said that the district has also focused on expandingeco-tourism tours to a number of areas, including Thanh Phu, NamSai and Thanh Kim which are home to many ethnic minority groups.
In the first days of 2017, the locality also held a numberof cultural and art events to attract visitors, while deploying forces toensure traffic safety and security, Hinh added.
Locatedat 1,600 metres above the sea level in Vietnam’snorthwest mountains, Sa Pa is a picturesque town famous for itsfine, rugged scenery and the cultural diversity of many ethnic minority groups.
Hometo many hill tribes, rice terraces, lush vegetation and Fansipan, which isdubbed as the roof of Indochina, Sa Pa has become an ideal destination fordomestic and foreign travellers./.
With beautiful landscapes, friendly people and special cultural identities, Sa Pa town in the northern mountainous province of Lao Cai has been exerting every effort to become a key tourist attraction
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Sa Pa Snow Festival kicked off in Sa Pa district, the northwestern province of Lao Cai, on December 24 with a view to promoting local natural and cultural beauties among visitors.
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By source market, China continued to lead with 3.1 million visitors, equivalent to 25.5% of all foreign arrivals. The Republic of Korea followed with 2.5 million, or 20.7%. Other major markets included Taiwan (China) with 737,000, the US with 522,000, and Japan with 380,000.
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A terraced rice field in Sa Pa (Photo: VNA) 
