Endowed with favourable natural conditions, Binh Thuan province has a lot of advantages in developing ecological and cultural tourism, especially sea resort tourism. In an interview with Vietnam Business Forum, Mr Ngo Minh Chinh, Director of the Binh Thuan Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism, asserted: “In the near future, Phan Thiet - Binh Thuan is completely able to compete with other first-rate resort destinations in Southeast Asia.” Quoc Hungreports.
Binh Thuan is blessed with many advantages in developing different forms of tourism like ecological tourism, cultural tourism and resort tourism. However, which form is catching the most of tourists for the province?
With a coastline stretching on nearly 200 km, many islands, forests, mountains, rivers, springs, historical and cultural relics, and traditional folk festivals, Binh Thuan province actually has numerous potentials and advantages develop a variety of tourism forms like ecological tourism, cultural tourism and entertaining tourism. Sea resort tourism catches the most interest of Vietnamese and international tourists.
Making the best of the beauty of sunshine, wind, sand and romantic beaches, Binh Thuan has created many tourism products and services like entertaining tourism and medical tourism. In addition to first-rate beach resorts, hotels and villas, Binh Thuan has also focused on investing and developing water sports like windsurfing, kitesurfing, sailing and parasailing; golfing services; spa, health care, mud-bathing, mineral-dipping, meditation and relaxing services; entertaining, shopping and arts centres. These enchant all visitors to come to Binh Thuan, stay longer when they come, and return after they leave.
Of nearly 300,000 international tourists visiting the province a year, a third comes from Russia. The high demand of Russian tourists for high-grade services and sea-life experience has asserted the brand name of sea resorts: Mui Ne - Binh Thuan - Vietnam.
In the first six months of 2011, Binh Thuan’s tourism industry welcomed some 1.448 million passengers and made turnover of VND1,603.5 billion. Where does this success come from? How will the province do to increase visitor arrivals and revenues?
Given unfavourable conditions to tourism activities like rising inflation, volatile prices and fierce competition, Binh Thuan province attained good results in the first half of 2011. To maintain its success, the tourism industry of Binh Thuan province must have many positive elements.
The charm of the nature and people in Binh Thuan continues to be promoted to build a world-class brand name of tourism. In early months of the year, Binh Thuan organised two international sporting events, including the PWA World Cup Mui Ne-Vietnam 2011 (PWA stands for Professional Windsurfers Association) and the Mui Ne International Yacht Festival 2011. Tourism companies boosted investment in upgrading infrastructure, enhancing the service quality, differentiating products and services to meet visitors’ demand for exploration, entertainment and amusement. Besides, promoting and marketing activities get more professionalised.
To increase visitor arrivals and revenues in the coming time, Binh Thuan will continue building up the image of a first-rate destination, improving the quality of tourism products and human resources, developing new tourist sites and tourism forms, and completing tourism infrastructure.
How has the province attracted investment for tourism development? How has it focused on developing infrastructures?
Binh Thuan province is promoting tourism in a modern and efficient way and with different forms. It regularly participates in trade fairs, exhibitions, and tourism road-shows in potential markets like Russia, Germany, Japan, Southeast Asian countries. Apart from participating in two major international tourism exhibitions, namely Travex Hanoi and ITE HCM City, Binh Thuan tourism also attended big tourist events like Nha Trang Festival, Da Lat Flower Festival and Vung Tau Food Festival.
Besides, the image of Binh Thuan tourism frequently appears on domestic and international media, tourism publications in different languages, and tourism websites. Especially, the province welcomes Fresstrip and Farmtrip tours to visit and explore local potentials and opportunities of investment and business.
Together with promotion activities, Binh Thuan focuses on improving tourism infrastructures, upgrading roads interlinking tourist sites, and building traveller service points. It also plans to construct new Phan Thiet railway stations, ports and airports and improve telecom systems, traffic systems, water and power supply systems, etc.
Reportedly, Binh Thuan has approved the project "Conservation and development of tourist landscape through 2020, with vision to 2030.” Could you tell more about this project, its role in tourism development, and its impacts on hoisting up the position of Binh Thuan tourism to the national and regional level?
This project aims to conserve and develop tourist landscapes to match the local sustainable tourism development strategy in the new era. It also targets at improving quality, diversifying products and services, creating competitiveness of tourism products, and bringing up the position of Binh Thuan tourism on a par with national, regional and international levels.
To deserve the national tourism centre the near future (together with Quang Ninh, Da Nang, Khanh Hoa, and Kien Giang), the project orients the development of Binh Thuan tourism. Thanks to the support of central authorities, the province will have cultural, sporting and tourism works qualified for large international events.
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