A rambutan orchard offers tourism services in Tan Qui riverine island in Tra Vinh province’s Cau Ke district. (Photo: VNA) Duong Hoang Sum, Director of the province's Departmentof Culture, Sports and Tourism, said the province plans to develop tourism incombination with promoting its advantages of agriculture, craft villages,culture and biological environment, and this will help develop the ruraleconomy sustainably.
It will develop and standardise tourism destinationsand rural tourism products, he said.
It aims for half of its agricultural and rural tourismservice establishments to meet the standards of serving tourists by2025.
It is assisting households and companies to build thedigital data and maps of rural tourism destinations, and providing professionalskills to serve tourists for people working in agricultural and rural tourismservices.
It will mobilise various sources to develop ruraltourism, use technology and digital transformation, and strengthen theco-operation among related sectors to develop tourism.
The province has developed green and sustainabletourism products and tourism destinations related to history, ancientarchitect, culture, spiritual festivals, rivers and orchards.
It has three community-based tourism destinations –Chim riverine island in Chau Thanh district, Ho riverine island in Cang Long districtand My Long fishing and marine village in Cau Ngang district.
Chim riverine island is located on Co Chien riverin Hoa Minh commune and is about 10km away from Tra Vinh city’s centre.
The island began to offer community-based tourismservices in 2019 and has become a well-known tourism destination.
Nguyen Thi Bich Van, head of the islandcommunity-based tourism services group, said after offering tourism services,the island has a new look as roads have flowers and treesplanted next to them and houses are decorated beautifully.
Visiting the island, tourists will be servedtraditional dishes such as ‘banh xeo’ (crispy Vietnamesepancake made from rice flour outside, shrimp meat, bean sprouts and otheringredients inside), steamed shrimp, grilled fish and the delta’s othertraditional foods, she said.
“All ingredients used for making these dishes arefresh, and cultivated or caught in nature by local farmers so tourists like thedishes,” she said.
The island has a total area of 62ha and 55 householdswhose main occupations are growing rice and breeding shrimp.
Of the 55 households, more than 20 participate inoffering tourism services and their lives have been improved significantly.
Each tourism household makes one traditional dishor offers traditional games, and they co-operate together to serve many dishesfor tourists at a same time.
Visiting the island, tourists can play traditionalgames, ride bicycles, walk in fruit orchards, row boats, cook local foods, andcatch fish, shrimp and crab.
To develop community-based tourism, the province gives50 million VND (2,100 USD) for each household that offers tourism services toinvest in tourism service facilities.
The province has instructed these houses to buildbamboo and thatched roof houses to serve tourists and strictlymanage tourism services activities to secure their quality.
Tra Vinh has advantages for developing agriculturaland rural tourism as it has a coastline of 65km, and is located 130km awayfrom Ho Chi Minh City between the Tien and Hau rivers, two tributaries ofthe Mekong River.
It has diversified natural tourism resources, with adense river and canal network, many riverine islands with fruit orchards andfriendly local people.
It has many popular tourism destinations such as Ba Om pond and Ang pagoda complex in the city of Tra Vinh, which wererecognised as national cultural and historic heritages in 1994./.
VNA
