Lesson 1: Tourism - Only "delicious rice and white rice"

In order to build and foster a new urban culture with identity, worthy of the central urban area of ​​the North Central region in the future, in 2004, Vinh City Party Committee issued Resolution 06. The Resolution mentioned many areas, including the content of building a cultural tourism environment (understood as cultural and human factors for tourism activities to exist and develop), creating a driving force for building Vinh into a tourism and service city of Nghe An province.

Vinh soon formed the values ​​of urban culture: in 1788, Yen Truong land with "Spacious shape, bright atmosphere" was chosen by Emperor Quang Trung and became Phoenix Trung Do, but unfortunately the career of Tay Son dynasty was too short. From the time ofkingGia Longto the kingsTu Duc,Thanh Thai,Duy Tan,Khai Dinh, Nghe An Citadel was respected and expanded day by day. From 1898 to 1917, the three towns of Vinh, Ben Thuy, and Truong Thi were born here, and in 1927, these three towns were merged to become Vinh - Ben Thuy City. At this time, Vinh City was one of the largest industrial cities in the country, a city of workers with tens of thousands of workers.In 1945, Vinh became a town of Nghe An province and by 1963, Vinh City was one of the five largest industrial cities in the North. In 1993, Vinh was recognized as a Class II urban area and by 2008 it was recognized as aType I urban areaunder Nghe An province.

After 5 years of implementation, Resolution 06 has been disseminated in all sectors, organizations and 25/25 wards and communes. Mr. Bui Nam Hau, Head of the Department of Culture and Information of Vinh City People's Committee, said: The Resolution has initially impacted the awareness of party members and people about the awareness of building and developing culture and urban lifestyle, creating a new model of Vinh, the civilized alley model - where the urban community is most closely connected, solving the problem of sanitation in the alley, preventing social evils, especially solidarity with neighbors. The institution of cultural facilities, cultural blocks, the quality of cultural and sports families has been improved, a number of cultural and sports institutions, cultural works have been carried out...

It must be said that the scope of Resolution 06 as well as the volume of requests are very large and widespread, but in the action program there are no specific projects for each field as well as large cultural works. Therefore, the achieved results are not sustainable: in alleys, hamlets, communes, wards, agencies everywhere, there is a movement to build and strive to achieve cultural units - cultural regulations are hastily issued, works and institutions are racing to spring up; cases of social evils and third child births are limited in the years of striving to receive the title, all for the goal of cultural units, and the installation of civilized alley signs.

King Quang Trung Temple on Dung Quyet Mountain (Vinh City). Photo: Sy Minh

Therefore, in many hamlets and agencies, after receiving the title, the movement calmed down and went down: drug addicts and third child births arose, facilities were degraded, weddings and funerals were held lavishly... In wards and communes, cultural awareness still has many issues to discuss. Some wards and communes even let businesses rent out their stadiums long-term, and people who want to practice sports have to pay.

In many places, the loudspeaker system of the ward and commune has been disabled because the FM type is easy to catch the wrong signal, and the loudspeakers are damaged by people throwing stones at them in the middle of the night; the wired type is also cut because the radio content is not edited, not attractive, and broadcast at the wrong time. The current radio system is only effective in some hamlets near the ward and commune People's Committees, and the information transmitted by the province and city does not reach the general public. In terms of awareness, the urban cultural lifestyle has not changed much, most clearly the story of people still dumping garbage in the wrong place; street vendors and shops encroaching on the sidewalks are still common. The awareness of doing tourism has not appeared in the thinking of Vinh people...

Returning to the issue of building Vinh into a tourism and service city; according to cultural history researcher Tran Minh Sieu, former Head of the Cultural Relics Department of Nghe An province, Vinh is located on the North-South highway and has an extremely important position in the cultural heritage road of the Central region. Vinh has a dense content of heritages and relics, such as: Phuong Hoang Trung Do, Uncle Ho's visit to his hometown, Can Linh Pagoda, Diec Pagoda - a Buddhist highlight, Temple of Literature - a Confucian highlight, Vinh Citadel, countless family churches such as: Tran Quy Khoang, Nguyen Viet Nhung, Nguyen Viet Phu, preserving many memories of high-ranking Party officials during their time working here such as General Secretary Tran Phu... In recent years, many cultural and tourist works in Vinh have been constantly rebuilt, upgraded and restored such as Ho Chi Minh Square, King Quang Trung Temple, the road along Lam River and soon the Ben Thuy Workers-Peasants-Soldiers Monument, Nghe An Temple of Literature. The roads have also been upgraded: sidewalks, roads, trees, electricity systems... Vinh also has a very beautiful location when it is located between Cua Lo resort and Kim Lien relic complex; very potential for tourism development but has not been awakened. According to Mr. Sieu, not all values ​​are liked by everyone, the city has not made those relics and works attractive and appealing... Because if tourists come to Vinh, they can only visit the relics, go to hotels and motels and that's it. Vinh does not have accompanying tourism services as well as tourism products to retain tourists.

Agreeing with this opinion, Mr. Truong Cong Anh, former Head of the Provincial Party Committee's Propaganda Department, likened: The tourism potential in Vinh is considered "delicious rice", but Vinh does not know how to process it. Rice can be cooked into bamboo rice, burnt rice, and ground into flour to make cakes, but Vinh "rice" can only cook one dish, "rice".

In Vinh, there are many modern shopping centers but there has never been a tourism product that can be given as a gift to people from far away. If you want to buy "Vinh gifts", there are none and even the locals do not know. According to Mr. Truong Cong Anh, the specialties of Vinh oranges and Nghi Loc coffee in the past are now very rare. He said that the most important thing that Vinh does not have is people working in tourism: people working in tourism cannot have the attitude of "talking like chopping a frog", wholesale, if you like it, buy it, if you don't like it, invite them to go somewhere else... Tourism is an industry that needs a lot of human resources, solves the problem of jobs for workers, helps people and localities escape poverty. Improving human resources capacity will help the tourism industry improve its competitiveness, attract visitors... Mr. Anh still feels sad when he visits a relic in Vinh and asks the person in charge here about the meaning of the Chinese characters in front of the gate and only receives the answer "don't know".

According to Dr. Ho Ba Quynh, a cultural history researcher who has been associated with Vinh City for a long time, Vinh tourism has not had any tours or routes for visitors, and tourism activities, if any, are only spontaneous. There are two reasons why Vinh is not a bright spot on the tourism map: First, there is a lack of tourism promotion and propaganda, which is only limited within the province "the child sings, the mother praises"; Second, businesses investing in tourism in Nghe An in general and in Vinh City in particular are not qualified and professional enough. Mr. Quynh confided that he is still expecting the business delegation from Nam Yang Ju City - Kyonggi Province of Korea to invest in Quyet Mountain Forest Eco-tourism Area but has not seen it yet... Besides, in tourism culture, professionalism, cooperation between units, enterprises, and business establishments that rely on each other to develop are almost non-existent, everyone still does their own thing, hotels only care about accommodation, supermarkets, and shopping centers only care about wholesale... there is no close coordination with departments and units that have the function of doing tourism.

Vinh City has a lot of work to do immediately to build an attractive and unique cultural tourism environment, to promote the development of the "smokeless industry" and services, but everything must be calculated, considered, and planned systematically, scientifically and thoroughly.