During the event, domestic andforeign experts, managers and representatives from travel agencies saidan agreement signed in 2008 among the provinces has brought aboutpositive outcomes, seen in the rising number of tourists andtourism-related revenues every year.
Statisticsshow the region, which comprises Lao Cai, Yen Bai, Ha Giang, Phu Tho,Hoa Binh, Dien Bien, Son La and Lai Chau provinces, welcomed 14.3million holiday-makers in 2014, including 988,000 foreign arrivals,earning a total revenue of over 7,8 trillion VND (362.8 million USD), ayear-on-year increase of 22.5 percent.
However,participants said the region still lags behind other regions in thecountry due to limited and unprofessional promotion efforts and weaklinkage with other tourist destinations.
Trinh Thi My Nghe,Deputy General Director of ITC Tourism Company stressed that while allprovinces in the region have great tourism potential such as uniqueethnic culture and customs, ancient relics and beautiful landscape,local tourism fail to attract great number of tourists due to a lack oforiginal and distinctive products and unplanned and small-scaleinvestment in tourism.
Deputy General Director of the VietnamNational Administration of Tourism (VNAT) Nguyen Quoc Hung said hisagency will focus on building specific products for each locality,enacting appropriate policies and legal frameworks, intensifyingpromotion activities, training human resources serving in the field, in abid to spur the development of the sector in the coming time.-VNA