Highlights of Can Tho River Culture Festival and special tourism products attract tourists

Tourists enjoy watching "flying snakehead fish" at the community tourism village of Con Son.

In the 11 months of 2025, Can Tho city attracted nearly 10 million visitors, with revenue of more than VND 8,600 billion, including more than 4.4 million overnight guests and 350,000 international visitors.

To attract tourists at the beginning of the new year and Lunar New Year, Can Tho city organizes the Can Tho River Culture Festival 2025 taking place from December 26, 2025 to January 1, 2026, with 12 main activities.

With the theme “Can Tho - Colors of Rivers”, the highlight of the festival is the opening program starting with a parade on the river taking place on the evening of December 26 at the Pedestrian Bridge - Ben Ninh Kieu Park. The colorfully decorated boats follow each other on the Hau River, blending with the sounds of traditional music echoing between the wharf and the boats, mixed with street dance performances, vibrant lion-dragon dances on the central streets of the city, bringing a bustling, joyful atmosphere, imbued with the identity of the river delta region.

The festival’s opening art program was elaborately staged with a team of professional artists, actors, and dancers from many theaters and art units across the country. The program took place on the Hau River, vividly recreating the culture, life, and cuisine of the people in the river region, while honoring the rustic beauty and affection of the people of the South.

On the opening night, the audience will enjoy a drone show combined with artistic fireworks, blending sound, light and folk cultural colors.

Vice Chairwoman of Can Tho City People's Committee Nguyen Thi Ngoc Diep said: Can Tho City wishes to organize a festival associated with the river characteristics of Can Tho and the Mekong Delta region and the idea of this festival has been "cherished" by leaders at all levels for a long time and now has enough conditions to organize a thoughtful festival, truly attractive to tourists. The special feature of the festival is that the main activities take place mainly on the river with a floating stage at Ninh Kieu Wharf; fireworks and art performances also take place on the river. In addition, composite boat races, SUP boat races, sailboat races on the Hau River... attract racers from all over the country to Can Tho to compete.

This is an activity to create a cultural-tourism highlight, practically welcoming the new year 2026, contributing to creating a joyful and exciting atmosphere, improving the cultural and spiritual life of the people; introducing and promoting the cultural characteristics of the Mekong Delta in general and Can Tho city in particular to people and tourists at home and abroad; at the same time raising public awareness in protecting the environment, especially the river ecosystem, encouraging sustainable tourism development.

To promote the strengths and potential of tourism in the three localities after the merger, the Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism of Can Tho city has coordinated with businesses, travel agencies, and tourist attractions to conduct surveys and link up to open tours and tourist routes connecting the three localities.

In addition, Can Tho city exploits the strengths of river-ecological-garden tourism with Cai Rang floating market, Con Son community tourism village, My Khanh and Ong De eco-tourism areas as highlights to attract visitors. Can Tho also focuses on developing conference and seminar tourism (MICE) thanks to the system of hotels, accommodation facilities meeting international standards (3-5 stars) and synchronous transport infrastructure.

In addition, Can Tho promotes the exploitation of cultural-spiritual tourism with the architecture of Khmer pagodas, Ngo boat racing festival, and diverse cuisine of Khmer and Chinese people. In addition, tourism routes combining the exploitation of agricultural tourism and eco-tourism strengths in Lung Ngoc Hoang Nature Reserve are very attractive to tourists.

Cai Rang floating market attracts many traders and tourists.

Over the years, the community tourism village of Con Son has always attracted many tourists thanks to its many interesting activities. Coming here, tourists can see flying snakehead fish, frog circus, and visit rare fish rafts of Hau River.

Ms. Le Ngoc Diem - a tourist from Dong Nai - shared: "I like the cool air here thanks to the many green trees. The people are friendly and hospitable, the delicious traditional cakes and dishes with their own characteristics are also very attractive to me and my family members."

However, tourism development in Can Tho is still difficult and limited due to the lack of synchronous transport infrastructure connecting destinations. Tourism products are still monotonous, lacking typical products and night tourism products to retain tourists. Tourism human resources have not met the quantity and quality requirements, especially human resources with foreign language proficiency and the rate of trained workers in tourist areas and spots is still low. Links and connections between localities in the city and the region are still at a relative level (mainly promotion), not focusing on linking to build a chain of in-depth tourism products.

To develop tourism, the People's Committee of Can Tho City is reviewing the items in the project to preserve and promote the unique features of Cai Rang floating market and has a policy to attract private resources to invest in suitable items; encourage the development of garden tourism, develop eco-tourism associated with nature conservation.

Can Tho authorities focus on calling on large businesses to develop night tourism products (cultural shows, cuisine, shopping) to increase tourists' length of stay and spending; develop potential types such as: MICE tourism (combining conferences and seminars), educational tourism, medical tourism and health care; increase investment in resources for tourism promotion in a systematic and synchronous manner, especially through digital transformation and smart tourism.

Comment (0)