A trip of tourists to visit Quoc Hoc high school for the gifted
The outstanding destination for educational travel
Japan is the traditional tourist market of Hue. For a long time, the main flux of Japanese tourists coming to Hue has been in the middle age. The services chosen are cultural inquiry, heritage visiting, leisure and health care travel.
Recently, the Japanese youngsters, especially high school students tend to carry out their trips to the places which are well-known as “the land of learning” to learn about the history and make the comparison with that in Japan.
According to the representative of Apex Vietnam Travel Cooperation (the biggest travel agency in Vietnam exploiting the market of Japanese tourists), Hue is the ideal and outstanding destination to build up educational travel tours for Japanese young tourists. Hue has been acknowledged not only as the place of the unique and attractive culture but also as a well-known studious land from the past to present.
In Hue, there are various schools nurturing talents who have not only great influence in Vietnam but also in the world; among which, the most prominent person is President Ho Chi Minh.
Another feature contributing to the decision of choosing Hue as the place to inquire and study of Japanese students is that scholar Phan Boi Chau had identified himself with Hue for years; and at present, many keepsakes and the memorable house of scholar Phan are still preserved.
Phan Boi Chau is the historical person of the two countries, and he is considered the person who started the friendly relationship between Vietnam and Japan. Hence, the Japanese students coming to Hue also spend a lot of time learning about the cooperative and friendly relationship in the diplomatic field between the two countries.
According to Mr. Truong Thanh Minh, Chairman of Hue Travel Association, when coming to Hue, Japanese students not only learn about the characteristics of the education in Hue, but also carry out the studies which serve their learning because Hue has many famous schools with the qualified system for higher education. A great number of visits are also combined with charitable tours, with finding out about the culture, with discovering heritage; these have increased their knowledge and made the tours of Japanese tourists more significant.
Cultural exchange
Recently, Hue tourism sector has coordinated with Japanese travel agencies to hold a survey about educational travel tours. The survey delegation said that Quoc Hoc high school for the gifted meets the criteria to be the destination for Japanese students to visit. The delegation had a meeting with leaders of Quoc Hoc high school for the gifted to work out the agreement on deploying and building the study travel tour program.
Mr. Nguyen Phu Tho, Principal of Quoc Hoc high school for the gifted shared that the school backs up this cooperation because Japanese students do not come for a visit only, the students of two countries will have the sessions to exchange knowledge and play games together.
This activity not only covers tourism element, but it also helps Quoc Hoc high school’s students become more dynamic and better increase knowledge to their learning, especially in the history and culture related to Japan.
According to Mr. Nguyen Phu Tho, teacher, the tourism exploitation need have a proper time arrangement. It means that instead of visiting and joining the exchange sessions in learning time, the visit of a delegation with a large number of visitors will be arranged appropriately in order not to influence the process of learning the main subjects of the school’s students.
Recently, some Hue businesses also put into operation some educational travel tour programs such as “Hue - thousands of years loving”, “Hue - past and present” through the activity of visiting and learning about destinations related to studying in Hue. The Travel Association said that if these tours improve their service quality and make the proper schedule arrangement, they can be a great choice for travel agencies to attract tourists.
Although it has just come into operation in a very short time recently, Hue has welcomed a great number of Japanese student delegations, in which there are hundreds of students each. It can be seemed as the potential source of tourists because this trend is becoming popular in all Japanese localities.
Exploiting educational tourism effectively is also expected to increase the diversity and attraction for Hue tourism. It provides more options for tourists when coming to Hue, not for Japanese tourists only.
Story, photo: Duc Quang