Night tour opens new direction for cultural tourism in Hanoi

Night tours to explore Hanoi are being implemented by many tourist destinations. However, there are still many difficulties to make night tours more sustainable and spread more strongly.

Visitors learn about literary stories in the museum. Photo: Vietnam Literature Museum.

Night tours offer an exciting and different experience compared to daytime tours. Especially in places with great architectural or cultural significance, night tours will bring visitors new discoveries , touching many senses and emotions.

Developing cultural tours and night experiences is being widely replicated in Hanoi . Up to now, some places that organize night tours include Hoa Lo Prison, Thang Long Imperial Citadel and Vietnam Literature Museum...

Specifically, the “Sacred Night” tour at Hoa Lo Prison opened in June 2020, creating a trend among young people in recent years. The relic site chose the form of historical drama, integrating music into the commentary, along with the highlight of the specialties of Banh Bang and Tra Bang, which are only served at the Hoa Lo night tour.

Meanwhile, the literary night tour “The Heart and the Talent” at the Vietnam Literature Museum also chose the form of a drama to recreate an excerpt from the short story “Chi Pheo”, adding a part of listening to a song set to music from the poem and ending the journey with a text decoding game.

The tour attracts many tourists every weekend to Thang Long Imperial Citadel. Photo: Chi Long

The night tour of Decoding the Imperial Citadel of Thang Long lasts about 1.5 hours on weekend evenings. Coming to the tour, visitors not only admire the historical space imbued with the royal court, under the shimmering, magical light, but also experience interesting and attractive activities. The tour takes visitors to visit the Thang Long - Hanoi exhibition house. Here, visitors will learn and listen to explanations about the antiques, architecture, and palace decorations through historical periods...

Most recently, the night tour at the Temple of Literature - Quoc Tu Giam officially welcomed guests from the beginning of November. The program applies 3D Mapping technology, taking advantage of the space of the tourist area to tell the story of the history of Taoism.

The Temple of Literature – Quoc Tu Giam Night Experience officially opens to tourists and Hanoians from November 1. Photo: Thuy Nga

Sharing about the development trend of night tours, writer Nguyen Truong Quy said that the night can put on a different coat for the landscape and people. The night has the function of recreating feelings, when people have the need to be entertained and relaxed.

“Night tourism can both take advantage of existing cultural spaces to satisfy that need and promote the economic potential and capacity of service providers, so that urban areas have more vitality and reduce waste of community space,” he analyzed.

However, according to the writer, not every location can develop night tours. The program must be linked to the function of that space, the capacity of the space management agency and the real needs of tourists.

“Successful night tours today are in spaces that are contained within an area, without causing noise pollution or hindering the normal activities of local residents. If you do night tours in more open areas such as on the street, where daily activities overlap, you have to be very careful in implementation,” shared writer Nguyen Truong Quy.

Meanwhile, from the perspective of those who directly run the night tour at the Museum of Literature, Dr. Do Thi Thanh Nga (Institute of Literature) said: “The difficulty in developing the night tour lies in the force participating in operating the tour. For example, the actors participating in the skit for the night tour are students, and can only collaborate for a short time.”

Another difficulty is the challenge of innovation and creativity in how current or future tours can attract and suit the needs of visitors, effectively utilizing the museum's artifacts and space.

laodong.vn