Illustrative image (Source: VNA) Hanoi (VNA) – The northern province of Quang Ninh is moving to developthe quality of tourism services on Ha Long Bay – a natural world heritage site.
The Ha LongBay management board has launched several routes to explore 28 locations on thebay.
Visitors canexperience various kinds of entertainment such as kayaking and taking a basketboat to popular destinations as well as admire the beauty of the bay.
Statisticsshowed that Ha Long Bay has 533 cruise ships.
To meet increasingdemand of visitors, transport companies have invested in heavy-load, luxuriousand safe cruise liners.
Foreigntourists are particularly interested in seeing how local farmers raise oystersfor pearls to create pearl jewelry.
To improvetourism on the bay, Ha Long city has focused on building regulations andmanagement plans for 2016-2020.
The citysent inspection teams to ensure security, order and safety, while removingillegal seafood business houseboats to the designated area at Cua Van.
It alsodirected the Ha Long Bay management board and the municipal centre ofcommunication and culture to popularise information on tourist attractions andticket prices while monitoring cruise ships.
As a result,the tourism environment on Ha Long Bay has improved. Violations in the firstten months of this year reduced by 25 percent compared to the same period of2015.
Furthermore,local authorities called on businesses to invest in developing services.
A number ofenterprises are asking for permission to invest in the field based on theprinciple of cultural heritage value preservation as stipulated under the Lawon Cultural Heritage.
Recently,the municipal People’s Committee announced a detailed plan on sight-seeingsites, service facilities, rest areas and shops for visitors at Cap Tao bay inHa Long, which will create more tourism products and services and generate jobsfor local residents.
The city alsoissued a temporary regulation on the management of tickets to the bay, whichallows visitors to buy tickets only one time to see all destinations.
Tickets arenow only available at Tuan Chau International Port and Hon Gai Vinashin Port.
Deputy headof the board Pham Dinh Huynh said the city will move to use e-tickets in thefuture.
Ha Long Bay,literally “descending dragon bay”, spans 1,553 square kilometres and includes1,969 islands of various sizes. It was recognised as a UNESCO World HeritageSite in 1994 and 2000.
The bayfeatures thousands of limestone karsts and islets in various shapes and sizes.
Thelimestone in the bay has gone through 500 million years of formation indifferent conditions and environments. The geo-diversity of the environment hascreated biodiversity, including a tropical evergreen biosystem, oceanic and seabiosystem. Ha Long Bay is home to 14 endemic floral species and 60 endemicfaunal species.
More than2.58 million tourists visited Ha Long Bay in the first 10 months of 2016, ayear-on-year increase of 21 percent, including 930,000 domestic travelers (up17 percent) and over 1.65 million foreign ones (up 24 percent), according tostatistics of the bay management board.
The bay isexpected to greet nearly 2.9 million holidaymakers for the whole year./.
VNA
