TraVinh (VNA) – Boasting a coastline of more than 162 kilometres withcriss-crossing canals, lush carpet of orchard gardens and kaleidoscope of ethniccultures, the Mekong Delta’s eastern coastal sub-region has huge potential todevelop tourism, heard a recent conference held in Tra Vinh province.
However, more than 200 experts at the November 17 event held that local tourismdevelopment is a far cry from its natural advantages.
Last year, the sub-region welcomed only 4.93 million out of 34.5 millionvisitors to the Mekong Delta, with tourism revenue accounting for 23.3 percentof the region’s total 11.3 trillion VND (488.78 million USD).
Tenuous connection within the tourism sector as well as shortage ofprofessional human resources and attractive policies to attract domestic andforeign investments should be handled to boost the non-smoke industry’sdevelopment in the sub-region, they said.
According to Assoc. Prof. and Dr. Bui Van Trinh from the Can Tho University,besides investing heavily in infrastructure, provinces in the eastern coastalarea should pick out their tourism staples. In addition, they should worktogether to pen a popularisation campaign for their quality products to attractvisitors.
Capitalising on spiritual tourism will help local tourism take off, M.A DuongDuc Minh from the Ho Chi Minh City University of Social Sciences and Humanitiessuggested, saying that this is a distinct advantage that not many places have.
Meanwhile, M.A Bui Hoang Tan from the Can Tho University laid stress on thetourism connectivity between the east and the west sub-regions as it issignificant for the whole region to branch out sea, waterway, eco-agriculturaland spiritual tourism to lure more travellers.-VNA
