HCM CITY — The 7^th Đà Lạt Flower Festival will be organised in the Central Highlands province of Lâm Đồng from December 23-27.

The biennial event, with the theme “Flowers of Đà Lạt – Miracle from the Good Earth,” honours flower growers and promotes the city’s flower and agricultural sector as well as  tourism development, said Võ Ngọc Hiệp, chairman of Đà Lạt City’s People’s Committee.

The festival will feature 15 key cultural, art and tourism events and 30 supporting programmes in Đà Lạt City, Bảo Lộc City and other localities in the province, Hiệp said at a press meeting held last week in HCM City.

For the first time, the Lâm Đồng Tea Culture Week, which in the past was organised separately, will be part of the festival, with a series of activities honouring tea growers and sericulturists, and silk-reeling makers and weavers in Bảo Lộc City.

A flower art space decorated with 30 flower miniatures around Xuân Hương Lake in Đà Lạt City will also be a highlight of the festival.

The festival includes an international exhibition and display of flowers from local and foreign firms; vegetables, bonsai, hi-tech agriculture, tea, silk and tourism exhibitions and fairs; a Tea-Coffee-Wine and Specialties Street; flower decoration contests and flower bike parades; and skating races and performances.

Semiars on Đà Lạt City’s investment, trade and tourism promotion in Lâm Đồng Province will also be held.

Around 500 artists will perform at the opening evening ceremony in Lâm Viên Square in Đà Lạt on December 23.

More than 600 hotels and accommodation facilities have pledged to sell rooms at the list prices, Hiệp said.

To ensure security for tourists, the city will set up four hotlines during the festival.

The festival is expected to attract 500,000 visitors.

The city targets 4.5 million tourists this year. Last year, 3.5 million tourists visited the city, including 282,000 foreign tourists. —VNS