Currently, ban flower (bauhinia), pear flower, and son tra (hawthorn) flower are blooming across the western part of Yen Bai, filling mountains and forests in the region with pure white, creating stunningly beautiful scenes. The brilliant colours of countless azalea flowers are also brightening the whole area. The spectacular beauty has drawn a large number of tourists to Yen Bai to enjoy the scenery.

Dang Thu Phuong, a visitor from Hanoi, said that she was travelling Tram Tau and staying at a homestay where she learnt that son tra flowers were blossoming, and she decided to have a look. "Gorgeous! I can watch the flowers all day!” said Phuong.

The nature gifts Yen Bai with many typical kinds of flowers that bloom throughout the year. The first and second months of the lunar year is the season on bauhinia, pearl, hawthorn and azalea flowers, while October is the season of yellow wild sunflowers, and December is the blooming season of "To day” (wild peach) flower.

Whether this value and beauty are optimised for tourism development or not depends on the strategy of each locality. Mu Cang Chai has been a good example in bringing this strength into full play by turning the forest flowers into tourism products. The "To day” flower festival has been organised annually in the locality.

Tran TrungKien, Vice Director of the Culture-Information Division of Mu Cang Chai district said that when the locality got all conditions to turn To day flowers into a tourism product, the district started to organise To day flower festival on an annual basis from 2022.

Alongside, programmes highlighting the cultural identity and cuisine of the locality have been held in coordination with other localities and travel firms, along with experience tours in combination with trekking activities to explore the nature in La Pan Tan and Lao Chai communes, as well as camping, cloud "hunting” and sunrise and sunset observing activities. The activities have attracted a great number of visitors.

The festival has been one of the key factors helping Mu Cang Chai lure 365,000 tourists and earn 365 billion VND (14,598 USD), the highest amount ever.

In recent years, tourists to Yen Bai tend to choose destinations having flower blossoming seasons or flower festivals. In fact, along with Yen Bai, many mountainous localities have successfully developed flower blossoming seasons into unique tourism products such as Ha Giang with buckwheat flower, Moc Chau with white mustard and plum flowers, Son La with hawthorn flower, Dien Bien with bauhinia flower./.