Peach blossom – Xu Lang signature tourism brand

– Lang Son is famous for being the land of peach blossoms. Today, when Xu Lang is on the rise of developing, integrating deeply with the whole country, peach blossoms have been raised to become a trademark of the province’s tourism.

Only in the past few years, images of peach blossoms have appeared on many streets, from school campuses, businesses, offices to identification systems that are easily seen in signposts on roads, gates, in decoration, celebrations of events, festivals… The brand “Peach blossom of Xu Lang” is increasingly appearing with high frequency and is mentioned by the national media. If you do a research on Google, at the time of January 2022, there will be over 44,000 results for the keyword “peach blossom of Xu Lang”. Notably, in the period of 2018 – 2020, the series of activities in the annual Xu Lang peach blossom festival, which lasts from the end of December of the previous year to the middle of January of the following year, attracting an average of over 10,000 visitors. In particular, at the end of 2021, together with the image of Mau Son mountain, peach blossoms have officially become the logo of the province’s tourism brand.

Visitors experienced at Quang Lac Peach Blossom Fair in 2021

In order to build Xu Lang tourism brand from peach blossoms, over the years, the Provincial People’s Committee has implemented the project “Preserving and developing the value of peach trees and organizing the Xu Lang Peach Blossom Festival” (referred to as the project) issued on October 31, 2018, at Decision No. 2167/QD-UBND. The project offers many solutions to promote the value of the peach tree in Xu Lang, in which the solution on “communication and brand development of peach blossom brands in tourism” is one of the four key groups of solutions has been deployed and achieved many important results.

Mr. Nguyen Phuc Ha, Director of the Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism said: As the agency responsible for the implementation of the project, over the past time, the Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism has coordinated to systematically implement many solutions to develop the peach blossom brand in tourism such as designing the peach blossom brand identity system; propagandizing and mobilizing the people to actively participate, respond and be conscious and responsible in organizing cultural and tourism events about peach blossoms, organizing peach blossom festivals to introduce and promote culture , tourism of the province…

Accordingly, from 2019 to now, every year, the Tourism Promotion Information Center (under the Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism) has built tours to visit the peach garden for tourists, and at the same time published nearly 100 news, articles and photos introducing Xu Lang peach blossom on the province’s smart tourism application and social networking platforms Zalo, Facebook; organized the display of peach blossom products and images at trade and tourism promotion events inside and outside the province; made provincial tourism gifts inspired by peach blossoms such as peach babies, actively promoting the provincial tourism logo…

In addition, the peach blossom festival is organized by the Provincial People’s Committee in a variety of forms and diverse in activities such as peach blossom fairs, beautiful peach garden contests, etc. After 3 years of successful organization (2018 – 2020), the Peach Blossom Festival has made a significant contribution to shaping the peach blossom as a trademark of the province’s tourism.

Responding to cultural and tourism activities to promote the image of peach blossoms, over the years, districts and city have also actively paid attention to expanding peach growing areas and building brands to serve tourists. The province now has over 300 hectares of peach trees, distributed in 11 districts and city. In which, there are 153 organizations and individuals who are the owners of households producing and trading peach blossoms with the collective brand “Peach blossom of Xu Lang”. Many peach growing areas attract many tourists such as  peach blossom cooperative in Minh Hoa commune, Huu Lung district; Ban Cao Peach Blossom Cooperative, Quang Lac Commune, Lang Son City…

Mrs. Pham Thi Thuan, Deputy Head of the Culture and Information Department of Lang Son city said: “In order to promote the image of peach blossoms and serve tourism development, we focus on replicating the model of growing peach trees in garden houses and city ​​tourist attractions and organizing peach blossom fairs. Up to now, the city has over 100 hectares of peach trees, an increase of nearly 50 hectares compared to 2018. In 2022, the city will organize 4 peach garden experience tours for tourists to visit, experience and print 5,000 leaflets with the words “Lang Son City – City of Peach Blossoms” introducing the city tourism to visitors…

It can be seen that the branding for Xu Lang peach blossoms has been successfully implemented. However, in order to maintain and develop this brand, contributing to turning tourism into a spearhead economic sector of the province, there is still a lot of work to be done, in particularly, it needs more attention from all levels, sectors and the efforts of the people in the province.