Despite objective and subjective difficulties, the tourism industry in 2013 was still a bright spot in the economic picture of Ba Ria - Vung Tau, with impressive growth in terms of the number of tourists and sales. The success of 2013 is actually a good sign as well as an important prerequisite for the development of Ba Ria - Vung Tau which affirms the leading role of tourism in the local economy.
In early 2013, a series of activities under the opening of the cultural tourism programme were organised, namely: the first New Year’s caller, art gala, investment day, press awards ceremony on commerce and tourism, all of which helped attract a large number of visitors to Ba Ria - Vung Tau. Particularly, the announcement and receipt ceremony of the recognition of Con Dao Prison as a special national vestige at the end of March 2013 is considered a vivid promotion programme for the image of Ba Ria – Vung Tau in general and Con Dao in particular. For domestic and international tourists as well as investors, the attractive destinations and potential of Con Dao has drawn much attention, with history-culture tourism, spiritual tourism, and adventure tourism to discover natural landscapes and environmental wonders.
This year, many projects and resorts in Ba Ria - Vung Tau officially came into operation (Vietso Petrol Resort, Carmelina Beach Resort & Spa, Ho Tram Resort), contributing to creating new and distinctive tourism products for the tourism industry of the province. In 2013, Ba Ria - Vung Tau served approximately 12.5 million tourists, including about 468,000 foreign visitors , increasing by 13 percent compared with 2012; while revenue from tourism reached VND2,895 billion, increasing by 18.74 percent compared with 2012.
Particularly in the first two months of 2014, Ba Ria - Vung Tau served over 2.7 million visitors including 80,371 international visitors. In 2014, the provincial tourism strives to gain VND3,229 billion of revenue and serve 13.5 million visitors including 495,000 international ones.
Mr Nguyen Van Son, Deputy Director of the Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism, said that the year 2014 is predicted to be a more difficult year for the tourism industry. Tourism activities in Ba Ria - Vung Tau, however, still find many favourable opportunities to develop. One of the highlights is the first stage of exploiting the Grand - Ho Tram Strip resort complex project with average turnover of about VND200 billion per month, which is expected to boost the growth of Tourism in Ba Ria - Vung Tau. In addition, by putting Ho Chi Minh City - Long Thanh - Dau Giay Highway into use, the circulation road from Ho Chi Minh City to Long Thanh connected the tourism space of Ho Chi Minh City and Ba Ria - Vung, shortened travel time from Ho Chi Minh City as well as the southwestern provinces to Ba Ria - Vung Tau and vice versa. It is a golden opportunity for Ba Ria - Vung Tau tourism industry to attract more tourists, especially international visitors, through Ho Chi Minh City gateway.
To effectively utilize opportunity, increase tourist quantity and revenue, and fulfil the targets, in addition to continuously innovating and improving the product quality of the traditional tourism, in 2014 provincial tourism will continue developing and exploiting heritage tourism, which focuses in finishing and upgrading destinations of cultural relics, historical sites, and intangible heritage. It is vital to strengthen Vung Tau Tourism Fair, organize cultural - sports and tourism events as 2014 Cultural - Tourism Festival, International Kites Festival, and Nghinh Ong Festival. Moreover, the People’s Committee of Ba Ria - Vung Tau will supervise the production and transport of specific local souvenirs to market, to meet the shopping needs of visitors. The combining forms of tourism and conferences, seminars, exhibitions, event, reward tour for employees, for partners will be tourism products developing along with the other ones in the province.
With the theme "Heritage Tourism", the tourism industry 2014 of Ba Ria – Vung Tau will focus on reviewing and upgrading the system of 44 historical, cultural and architectural relics, which were ranked. Then, the investment and upgrade for the selected tourist attractions will be done. Ba Ria – Vung Tau and Vietnam Marketing Association also jointly build tourism marketing strategies to promote Ba Ria - Vung Tau tourism aboard, immediately in Japan and Myanmar. In addition, the province will also focus on organizing cultural, sports and tourism events in order to attract the attention of internal and external tourists to Ba Ria - Vung Tau.
According to the Action Plan of Ba Ria - Vung Tau, in 2011-2020, the tourism revenue growth is expected to reach 15.9 percent per year, the growth rate in tourist arrivals is 12.6 percent per year. By 2015, the tourism revenue is expected to approach VND3,729 billion; the province would welcome 15,211 million visitors, including 545,000 international visitors.
By 2020, the province strives to become one of the biggest resort and entertainment centres in the whole country. Accordingly, in 2015, 50 percent of the tourism projects including the type of resort, recreation, culture combining sports and ecotourism, which have been granted investment licenses, will be put into operation.
Kim Ngoc
Vietnamese
