(TITC) - From 1 to 20 June 2015, the 11th Southern Fruit Festival 2015 will be held in Suoi Tien Cuture Tourism Area (District 9, Ho Chi Minh City) by Department of Tourism, Department of Agriculture and Rural Development of Ho Chi Minh City in collaboration with Suoi Tien Culture Tourism Area with the participations of 21 provinces and cities nationwide.
This is an annual culture, tourism event of the city to introduce and honor the achievements in the agricultural sector of Southern region and also Viet Nam, at the same time contribute to promoting the image of Ho Chi Minh City to foreign and domestic tourists.
The opening ceremony of the Southern Fruit Festival 2015 will take place on 1 June 2015 with many exciting programs, such as: street carnival of the art troupes of Viet Nam, Korea, Malaysia, Indonesia, India, Laos, Cambodia and Thailand; fruit masquerade festival “Tu linh bach qua than tien hoi” with the participations of more than 200 actors… “Tu linh bach qua than tien hoi” festival will be performed 2 shows/day during 20 days of the festival.
A new feature of this year festival is the activities will be gathered into one area and arranged incessantly for convenience of visitors. In particular, the “Fruit Floating Market” is divided into two areas of selling and displaying. The selling area will have 50 stalls which are the boats loading more than 150 Southern fruit types. Here, the fruit will be sold for special deals (20-40% reduction compared to the market price), including lots of famous fruit brands such as Hoang Gia grapefruit (Vinh Long Province); Hoang Hau dragon fruit (Long An Province); Luc Ngan lychee (Bac Giang Province); Cai Mon durian (Ben Tre Province); Sa Dec star apple, Hoa Loc mango (Dong Thap Province); Vinh Kim seedless guava (Tien Giang Province); Lai Thieu mangosteen (Binh Duong Province); Tan Trieu Bien Hoa grapefruit, Long Thanh jackfruit, Vinh Cuu orange (Dong Nai Province); Sa Pa peach (Lao Cai Province); plum (Lang Son Province); custard apple (Tay Ninh Province); Hoang Kim melon (Hau Giang Province)... The displaying area introduces the fruits met VietGap and Global Gap standards, giant fruit collection (6kg-gourd, 50kg-waxy pumpkin, 4kg-grapefruit…), rare fruits (than lan, osaca, vu ve, coc ken, trai mat trau, buoi ban tay Phat, black tomatoes, violet mango, violet kohlrabi, violet longan...).
A more expected activity at each festival is the contest of fruit plastic art. This is a key activity of the festival to develop and honor traditional fruit plastic art of the Southern people. Based on the main themes of homeland sea-island and the 40th anniversary of Southern Liberation and National Reunification (30 April 1975 – 30 April 2015), the unique fruit plastic art works will be on display along the main road of Suoi Tien Culture Tourism Area. The closing and awarding ceremony of the contest will be held on 20 June 2015 (Tet Doan Ngo, the 5th day of the fifth lunar month) in Emperor Stage (Suoi Tien Culture Tourism Area).
In this year’s Southern Fruit Festival, Ho Chi Minh City’s Department of Tourism in coordination with Department of Agriculture and Rural Development of the city, Institute of Southern Fruit Trees and Suoi Tien Culture Tourism Joint Stock Company will continue to organize the 7th Southern delicious and safe fruits contest with the participations of growers, cooperatives, enterprises of 21 provinces and cities in the South. The contest aims to honor the delicious and safe fruits; encourage growers to apply scientific advances in production and cross-breeding of new variety with good quality; search and detect the strange fruit varieties, contribute to diversify of the Southern fruit. The contest consists of two main parts: delicious and safe fruit competition and exhibition of strange tuber and fruit held in Hung King Stage (Suoi Tien Culture Tourism Area) on 1 June 2015.
Besides, to the Southern Fruit Festival 2015, visitors will have the opportunity to enjoy 30 delicious dishes made from fruits such as truong tho thap nhi qua, ga nau trai vai (chicken cooked with lychee), luon om sau rieng (eel simmered with durian)…, participate in the online photo contest “Suoi Tien Colors” and many folk games such as fish fighting, drop balls into the crossword, throwing cans, tug of war...
The Southern Fruit Festival 2015 is expected to attract over 1 million visitor arrivals. On this occasion, Suoi Tien Culture Tourism Area offers free entrance tickets for children accompanied by their parents, 50% discount of entrance tickets for children with the group on International Children Day (1 June). From 1 June to 30 August 2015, Suoi Tien Culture Tourism Area also discount 50% for excellent pupils in the academic year of 2014 -2015.
Thu Giang