Southern Food Festival opens in Tra Vinh province

The Southern Cuisine Festival and Cultural and Tourism Week opened in Tra Vinh on November 16, on the occasion the Tra Vinh Ok Om Bok Festival.

At the event
At the event

The opening ceremony featured the participation of more than 300 guests, who are leaders, researchers in tourism, delegates from the Departments of Culture, Sports and Tourism and tourism enterprises, as well as visitors and local people in the region and provinces.

This year, Tra Vinh province selected tourism as the theme for the year. The province has set the goal of making tourism an important economic sector by 2025 and for tourism to become a key economic sector of the locality by 2030.

Visitors visiting relics

The Ok-Om-Bok festival received the title of ‘National Intangible Cultural Heritage’ in 2014. Ok-Om-Bok, a moon worshipping ritual performed by the Khmer ethnic group, is one of the three main festivals they celebrate every year. The Khmer traditionally believe that the moon is a God who controls the weather and crops throughout the year. The festival takes place at full moon in the 10th lunar month.

Going to this year’s festival, visitors have the chance to enjoy an exhibition on nine districts and cities in the province, a ceremony to debut a mural street under the Khmer ethnic Cultural Village in Tra Vinh province, a Khmer ethnic volleyball championship, a photo exhibition and award ceremony of the photo contest on Tra Vinh tourism, surveys on tours in the province, a southern food festival, a seminar on tourism connection in the east of Mekong river delta and folk games.

In addition, a trade, tourism and agriculture fair, with more than 300 booths of 100 businesses and donors in and outside the province, has also been organised under the framework of the event.