Get the party started: Hanoi scraps midnight curfew

By    August 10, 2016 | 02:39 am PT
Get the party started: Hanoi scraps midnight curfew
People attend a local annual beer festival in Hanoi. The capital city is set to ease the ban on businesses staying open after 0 a.m. Photo by AFP
It will soon be legal to party after midnight in the capital.

Quenching your thirst and dancing after midnight will no longer be illegal in Hanoi after the city’s leaders decided to jettison the long standing law that bans businesses, particularly late-night bars and pubs in the capital, from staying open into the small hours.

“Hanoi will relax the ban on businesses staying open after 12 a.m.,” Nguyen Duc Chung, chairman of the municipal People’s Committee, said Tueday at a national conference on tourism in the popular resort town of Hoi An.

“The city currently has a rule that bans all recreational activities once the clock ticks past midnight, but for many foreign visitors, life after midnight is something that makes the city stand out. That’s why we are going to relax the law,” Chung said.

The tourism sector will act as a driving force underpinning Hanoi’s economic growth, said the city’s mayor.

But Chung stopped short of when exactly the curfew would be lifted.

The capital city is forecast to record annual growth rate of 10 percent in tourist arrivals. The tourism sector is expected to generate VND120 trillion ($5.4 billion) for the city by 2020, when Hanoi plans on welcoming 30 million tourists, 19 percent of whom will be international visitors.

In a bold attempt to give Hanoi’s tourism industry a boost, the city’s leaders have chalked out a detailed plan to transform Hanoi into a top destination in Southeast Asia.

The planned midnight-curfew lift is the latest move in a raft of actions the capital is taking to boost tourism.

Just last week, the city hall unveiled a plan to install free public wi-fi hot spots in many outdoor spaces and street corners city-wide in a bid to build a smart city transport system, following in the footsteps of Ho Chi Minh City and Da Nang.

Related news:

Hanoi to roll out free, city-wide wi-fi

Hanoi sets growth target of 9 percent by 2020

 
 
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