Sea-island Tourism: Spearhead Sector of Vietnam Tourism Development

Sea-island tourism accounts for about 70 per cent of Vietnam’s tourism and is considered one of five breakthrough steps for the coastal and maritime economy. Sea-island tourism is gradually becoming a strategic orientation of Vietnam tourism in near future, as well as for the long term.

 

Exploiting sea-island tourism plays an important role not only in socio-economic development but also in the national defence and security strategy. With a coastline of over 3,260 kilometres, more than one million square kilometres of sea water surface, about 2,773 islands and beautiful beaches with white sand and pure water, Vietnam is full of potential to develop sea-island tourism.

 

Along the country’s coastline, there are 125 beaches suitable to tourism standards such as Sam Son in Thanh Hoa province, Cua Lo in Nghe An, Thien Cam in Ha Tinh, Nhat Le in Quang Binh, Cua Tung and Cua Viet in Quang Tri, Thuan An and Lang Co in Hue city and those in Nha Trang and Vung Tau cities. Of the sum, over 30 have been invested and exploited. Many beaches and bays in Vietnam have been well-known to foreign visitors, including Ha Long Bay, recognized by UNESCO as a world natural heritage two times and now nominated to the list of world wonders; Nha Trang Bay selected as one of the globe’s most beautiful bays; Danang beach voted by Forbes magazine as one out of six most charming beaches in the earth. The above-mentioned titles have proved the attraction of Vietnamese sea to tourists at home and abroad. Notably, many sea regions having lots of potential have been invested for development like Halong-Haiphong-Cat Ba; Hue-Danang-Quang Nam; Van Phong-Dai Lanh-Nha Trang; Vung Tau-Long Hai-Con Dao; Ha Tien-Phu Quoc; Phan Thiet-Mui Ne. In addition, Vietnam is home to a lot of charming and attractive islands such as Cat Ba, Bach Long Vy, Con Co, Cu Lao Cham, Con Dao and Phu Quoc.

 

Besides the natural beauty and fresh air, each island is linked to historical stories and legends which are interesting to visitors. Traditional cultures of ethnic people like the Kinh, Hoa Kieu, Khmer and Cham living along the coastline are significant for sea tourism development. Many sea regions like Haiphong-Quang Ninh; Hue-Danang-Quang Nam are full of natural landscapes and humanitarian values for tourist attraction. Investors along the coastline have built villas, gastronomy streets and performance areas of aquatic animals like dolphin, seal and sea lion, plus gardens, sea animal displays, tennis courts, entertainment areas and restaurants.

 

Along with natural beaches, the system of coastal services and infrastructure has increased. The number of three-star and above hotels mainly concentrates in coastal provinces and cities. According to statistics there are nearly 1,400 residential establishments with more than 45,000 rooms in coastal localities, creating jobs stretching through the whole country, with main focus on Ho Chi Minh City and Ba Ria-Vung Tau (60 per cent); Thua Thien-Hue (8.5 per cent); Danang (8.5 per cent) and Haiphong-Quang Ninh (8.1 per cent). The development of sea tourism also contributes to boosting economic growth, creating jobs in coastal central localities where there are about 21.2 million people of working age and helping protect the environment as well as supporting national defence.    

 

Thanks to the long coastline and thousands of islands including the archipelagos of Hoang Sa (Paracels) and Truong Sa (Spratlys), Vietnam’s sea tourism has many unique products and services and plays an important role in the country’s tourism development strategy. It is also among key missions to develop the maritime economy. 

 

The primary goals are as follows: the rapid and sustainable development of tourism; prioritizing high quality sea and island tourism; development of sea tourism in close connection with ensuring national security, the development of sea tourism must be suitable with the master plan of socio-economic development.

 

Vietnam has targeted sea tourism to become the spearhead sector in 2011-2020. By 2020, the country’s sea tourism will be named among the best in the region along with Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia. Accordingly, Vietnam plans to set up at least five marine tourism areas able to compete against others in the region, including Ha Long-Cat Ba, Lang Co-Son Tra-Hoi An, Nha Trang-Cam Ranh, Phan Thiet-Mui Ne and Phu Quoc tourism areas. Besides, the sector continues to call for investments into other national tourism areas, particularly Van Don-Co To tourism which is set to be listed among the most competitive of the region by 2030. Vietnam is also planning to exploit tours to the Paracels and Spratly archipelagos; and build and put into operation tourism ports of Ha Long, Danang, Nha Trang, Ho Chi Minh City and Phu Quoc as soon as possible. In order to realize these targets, Vietnam’s tourism development strategy for 2011-2020 will focus on studying the market orientation and development of tourism products and services of high quality and added value, combining tours of sightseeing and ecological tourism; heritage tourism and resorts, sea sports and river tourism, building supporting services and its own products. In addition, it is necessary to orient tourism products for key markets, promote sea tourism advertisement. The Vietnam National Administration of Tourism (VNAT) will be responsible to instruct and manage the content as well as theme of national tourism promotion activities, aiming to build the trademark of Vietnam sea tourism. The VNAT will also invest and upgrade tourism infrastructure, build national tourism areas in a number of coastal localities, train human sources for the sector, and restore heritage relics, particularly those recognized as world heritages. The sectors will also pay attention to measures to cope with and ease influences of climate change, especially rising sea water levels in tourism-developing localities and islands. 

 

To exploit the plentiful potential and strengths of sea and island tourism as well as realize the planned targets, the VNAT will submit to the government the Scheme on Vietnam Tourism Development for 2011-2020 and a vision to 2030, in which the development strategy of sea and island tourism will be a spearhead in the next ten years. 

 

The scheme is divided into two phases of 2011-2015 and 2016-2020 with specific programs as follows: Raising public awareness of sea tourism, making master surveys of natural resources for sea tourism, building infrastructure and unique products as well as services for sea tourism, promoting advertisement and international cooperation in the sector, rechecking and completing policies relating to developing sea tourism, project of master planning of sea tourism by 2020, project of developing tours to the Paracels and Spratlys, projects of combining tourism development and addressing climate change. Through the implementation process under the management of the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, the VNAT will join hands with other ministries and agencies as well as authorities of coastal localities in order to bring the strategy of sea tourism development to life, contributing to develop sea tourism and the country’s tourism sector in general in the era of integration.