Dong Thap promotes agricultural tourism

Dong Thap (VNA) – Dong Thap province is promoting agricultural tourism, thereby providing more experiences for tourists as well as helping raise income for local farmers.

The Mekong Delta province is well known for its flowers, ornamental plants and fruit orchards.

In its Sa Dec city, more than 2,300 households grow flowers and ornamental plants on a total of 700ha, mostly used for decoration.

In recent years many of them have begun welcoming sightseers to their flower and ornamental gardens.

There are now various well – known agricultural tourism destinations like Cai Dao – Sa Nhien flower road and flower gardens like Ngoi nha Hoa ech, Hai Cao, Happy Land Hung Thy, and Ngọc Lan.

Pham Thanh Tam, owner of the Canh dong hoa hong (Rose field) tourism site in Tan Quy Dong ward, said besides a 2.5ha rose garden for tourists, he also has a 5,000sq.m farm growing gourds to sell to them.

Thousands of tourists visit his site every day, he said.

Known as the land of the pink lotus, the province is increasingly attracting tourists to its lotus fields and fruit orchards.

In lotus fields visitors can go around by boat to fish and try specialty foods made from various parts of the flower-like stem, root and seed.

They attract more than 10,000 tourists a month, mostly from Ho Chi Minh City and neighbouring provinces.

In Lai Vung district, well known for its beautiful pink mandarin and orange orchards, nine welcome tourists and offer them services including food.

Pink mandarin is the province’s specialty fruit, is popular for its delicious taste and beautiful colour, and is especially in demand during Tet.

The province has about 100 sites that offer agricultural tourism, which also help protect the environment and promote local cultures.

Pham Thien Nghia, Chairman of the provincial People’s Committee, said there has been a success in developing tourism and the industry has been identified as one of the province’s most important ones.

The province is encouraging tourism start-ups by local people, and would pay closer attention to developing waterway and green tourism, he said.

It has invested in infrastructure for tourism development like roads leading to popular destinations.

This year it received more than 122,000 tourists during Tet in early February, 5 percent up from last year./.