Nha Trang City, under Khanh Hoa Province in central Vietnam, is organizing a locally-featured tourist gift design contest to showcase its artistic skills while developing local identity following the current situation in which beach city souvenirs are considered monotonous.

Accordingly, Nha Trang City’s Ponagar Temple Towers, a historical and cultural relic complex of the ancient Cham people, impressed tourists with many stalls of souvenirs, such as terracotta statues, silk handkerchiefs, brocade keychains, and more.

“Souvenirs should feature local characteristics”

Nguyen Thi Thuy Hang, head of the Ponagar Tower Relics Management Board, said that many tourists want to own tourism products thanks to demonstrations of the destination and special features of Cham dance alongside the art of pottery making and weaving.

The city hopes to receive many entries to promote the image of a beautiful and hospitable locality while enriching its tourism brand identity after many said the current souvenirs leave no mark.

In addition, the winning works will be used for propaganda and tourism promotion activities at domestic and international events. 

Therefore, the submitted works must aesthetically summarize the tourism characteristics of the locality, which includes beaches in Nha Trang.

“An appealing souvenir should feature regional characteristics or be associated with the city’s historical story. Besides, the price must be tagged,” said Hang.

Tran Minh Duc, vice president of the Nha Trang - Khanh Hoa Tourism Association, said the coastal city used to have impressive handicraft products such as blinds and night lights made with shells and bamboo crafts.

But these souvenirs are gradually disappearing from the market due to the emergence of mass-produced goods.

“Nha Trang City should have its featured souvenir that can become a tourism symbol. For instance, visitors think of panda-shaped gifts when traveling to Chengdu (China), or Matryoshka dolls when they are in Russia,” said Duc.

High hope for the competition

The Khanh Hoa Provincial People’s Committee has held a contest to design Nha Trang - Khanh Hoa tourist gifts in the hope of finding designs with high aesthetics and specificity of the namesake destinations.

In addition, souvenirs should be portable, durable, health-friendly, and appropriate for mass production.

Furthermore, the design must be original.

The submitted designs can be single products or a collection with reasonable prices with the text in Vietnamese “Du lich Nha Trang – Khanh Hoa” and “Nha Trang – Khanh Hoa Tourism” in English outside.

The competition is open to all organizations and citizens in Vietnam from October 1 to November 30, with products sent by post to the Khanh Hoa Tourism Promotion Information Center at 61 Yersin Street, Phuong Sai Ward, Nha Trang City.

The announcement of the results and awarding ceremony is scheduled to take place in December.

Head of the Khanh Hoa Department of Tourism said that organizing this contest helps diversify souvenir products to meet the demand of buyers as well as promote tourism and give presents to delegates.

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