The festival is a top cultural tourism event that honours the identities of local ethnic groups while promoting Dien Bien’s image in a new phase of development.

A major highlight this year is the expanded range of community-based and heritage-linked cultural tourism experiences. These include hands-on activities such as cooking with Hoang Cam stoves and “soldiers’ meals” at historical sites of the Dien Bien Phu Battlefield.

Throughout the festival, the open-air performance Huyen tich U Va will be staged in U Va village, Thanh Yen Commune, showcasing historical narratives and folk cultural values of the Thai ethnic community in connection with tourism development.

Cultural activities remain at the core of the festival, with folk song, dance and music performances, alongside displays of traditional ethnic costumes. Notably, a street carnival will be held for the first time in the form of a parade combined with artistic performances and high-altitude fireworks, expected to create a lively atmosphere and draw large crowds of residents and visitors.

The programme also includes the event Returning to the Land of Ban Flowers -the Stilt House Homeland of the White Thai in Muong Lay, which recreates cultural spaces, presents traditional rituals and organises a night market, helping diversify local tourism products.

The 2026 festival will also feature a range of sports activities closely linked to Dien Bien’s history and cultural identity, such as artillery hauling, bicycle portage races, ammunition carrying, maize grinding, sticky rice cake pounding and tug of war. These will be accompanied by a road cycling race and an expanded cross-country race titled Journey Back to Dien Bien Phu.

In the areas of tourism promotion and investment, Dien Bien will host an investment and tourism promotion conference, the photo and video contest Impressions of Dien Bien, and a press trip programme inviting media organisations and digital content creators to experience and promote the destination. Exhibition and promotion spaces for cultural and tourism products, along with a three-theme cultural experience area, will also be organised to introduce OCOP products (One Commune One Product programme) and other local specialties to visitors.

Through the Ban Flower Festival 2026, Dien Bien continues efforts to preserve and promote traditional cultural values, honouring both tangible and intangible heritage, customs, folk arts, cuisine and traditional attire of ethnic communities. T

The event also contributes to strengthening the province’s tourism brand, boosting product consumption, supporting economic restructuring and accelerating the goal of developing tourism into a key economic sector.

With renewed content and organisational formats, the Ban Flower Festival 2026 reaffirms its status as a signature cultural tourism event of Dien Bien, spreading the cultural values of local ethnic groups, attracting visitors and investment resources, and making a positive contribution to socio-economic development in the province and the broader northwest region.

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