Focus on Building High-Quality Tourism Products

In recent years, Ninh Thuan tourism has seen substantial development in terms of tourism products, technical facilities and tourism infrastructure, and human resource development; helping to improve the position of tourism and gradually making it the key economic sector of the province. Ninh Thuan is currently investing much in this “smokeless” industry, targeting to contribute about 12 percent to the provincial GDP by 2020. Around this topic, the Vietnam Business Forum had an interview with Mr Phan Quoc Anh, Director of the Department of Culture, Sports & Tourism of Ninh Thuan. Cong Luan reports.

 

Ninh Thuan has a comparative advantage in natural resources and human resources to develop specific tourism products in coastal and mountainous regions, especially eco-tourism, adventure, picnic, travel conferences - workshops, and cultural and historical tours.

 

The main tourism development in the province over the years has always focused on the development of tourism products with high quality, friendly to the natural environment, and attractions along the beaches, forests, mountains, waterfalls, rivers, streams and lakes. The province gives priority to selectively develop 4 to 5 star luxury tourism projects, and resort and luxury spa services in the area with beautiful coastal locations in the North, along the coast of Binh Tien -Vinh Hy - Ninh Chu, in accordance with the planning. The province also exploits the advantages of natural conditions, characteristics of the sunny and windy weather to develop coastal marine sports such as sailing, windsurfing, and other sports such as swimming and diving.

 

 

We are currently linking the cultural sports activities with tourism, developing cultural tourism associated with the preservation, promotion, and introduction of tangible and intangible cultural values of the ethnic groups in the province. We also mobilise investment resources and call for the construction of cultural and sports buildings to be able to organize cultural, tourism and sport events at national and international scales, to meet the needs of spiritual life of the people and tourists, and attract visitors to Ninh Thuan.

 

The province also promotes the socialization of cultural activities and sports in association with tourism, builds and strengthens the union, team, folk art groups to become tourism products. We also combine restoring and embellishing programs with the construction of tourism infrastructure in the historical and cultural monuments, such as houses, temples, pagodas, towers, Pi Nang Tac stone trap, the landscapes and traditional craft villages, to form tours of connected destinations.

 

Personally, I think in addition to satisfying the basic needs of tourists, travel businesses need to choose one or two specific types of products, attach a brand to those products and provide additional services in order to enrich the trip.

 

On the other hand, businesses need to get together to build and develop cultural tourism destinations based on the exploitation of their potential value and the strength of historical and cultural monuments of war, unique culture of the people, festivals and villages to create unique, attractive tours in Ninh Thuan. They should focus on ingenious combination of cultural tourism with other forms of tourism, diversifying tourism products so visitors can have many options.

 

The national tourism sector will be actively supporting Ninh Thuan Tourism Association to promote travel services and closely boost linkage among tourism associations and tour operators in the country and overseas (especially Russian tour operators to attract Russian tourists) primarily in key economic regions in the Central and the South East, and some major tourist centres in the country. In the short term, they should focus on the formation and diversification of the tour from Binh Tien – Vinh Hy – Thai An Grape Village - Po Klongirai Temple - Cham Bau Truc pottery village, My Nghiep and Chung MyTextile village (and vice versa), along with entertainment attractions to increase the length of stay of tourists in Ninh Thuan.

 

The objective of the tourism industry by 2015 is to welcome about 1.3 - 1.4 million arrivals, an increase of 2 to 2.5 times higher than in 2010; and by 2020 to welcome about 2.5 - 3 million arrivals (international visitors accounting for 14 – 15 percent and 19 – 20 percent, respectively). The province strives to develop and put into operation 3,200 rooms of 3-star standard and above. It will solve 5 percent of the labour force in the province by 2015, and 13 percent by 2020.

 

To achieve these targets, the province focuses on mobilizing all resources in the construction and development of tourism infrastructure and creates the best conditions for all economic sectors to invest in tourism projects to welcome new factors and major projects such as construction of nuclear power plants, wind power development and construction of training centres. The province also gives priority to coastal tourism development along Binh Tien – Vinh Hy - Ninh Chu and will maximize tourism potential advantages of other areas as Dinh River, Ong River, Nai lagoon, sand dunes, mountains; Nui Chua National Park and Phuoc Binh National Park; the Trau River Basin, Tan Giang River and Ba Tri - Ma Trai Lakes, Chapor and Sakai waterfall, and other scenic places.

 

The province should diversify forms of tourism in line with the potential in parallel with the diversification of information, and promotion of tourism investment on the domestic and international media. The province should create the best conditions for the investors and select qualified investors having brands and determination to develop new tourism projects in key areas of the planning. In addition, the province will also be interested in improving the quality of tourism human resource development to meet the requirements of the industry in the coming years.