Beautiful Vietnam
Ha Long Bay officially recognised as new world natural wonder
  • | VietNamNet | March 29, 2012 08:39 PM

The New7Wonders organisation has officially recognized Vietnam’s Ha Long Bay as a new world natural wonder, announced a senior official from the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism.

 

Nguyen Van Tinh, head of the International Relations Department, said that he met with the New7Wonders’s general director in the morning of March 28 in Hanoi.

This organization’s chairman will come to Hanoi to present the title and the world natural wonder icon to Ha Long bay this weekend. The icon will be placed in Hanoi and Quang Ninh.

“I’m not surprised when the Ha Long Bay officially became a new world natural wonder, because this site was always at the top in qualifier rounds in the last four years,” Mr. Tinh said.

The 4-year vote for the new seven natural wonders of the world, held by the New7Wonders, closed at 2am, November 12, 2011, (Vietnam time). The winners included Vietnam’s Ha Long Bay, Amazon forest in South America, Iguazu waterfall in Argentina and Brazil, South Korea’s Jeju Island, the underground river in the Puerto Princesa of the Philippines, Komodo Island of Indonesia and Table Mountain of South Africa.

At that time the New7Wonders said that the above result was not the final. Independent auditing firms would check and the final result would be announced after March 2012.

Vietnamese people sent 24.09 million text messages to vote for Ha Long Bay, worth over VND15 billion ($700,000). According to the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism’s officials, this was the expenditure for promoting and advertising the Ha Long bay brand and Vietnam’s tourism. 

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