Challenges in linking tourism development in North - South Central region

(Baonghean)-It is necessary to properly assess the potential, advantages, challenges, as well as human resource training, tourism product promotion... are the opinions that experts sent to this North-South Central Region Tourism Cooperation Scientific Conference.

Assoc. Prof. Dr. Tran Dinh Thien - Vietnam Economic Institute: "Need to carefully evaluate potential and advantages from a modern perspective"

Intra-regional linkage of the Central Coast and inter-regional linkage with the Southeast, Central Highlands, Northern Cambodia and Southern Laos to develop tourism, with the central coordinates being the Central Coast, is a system of issues that has been studied - although basically only at the initial level - and discussed at a number of scientific seminars in the past few years organized by the Central Coast Development Advisory Group in coordination with BIDV. However, for the North Central region, although it is "connected to the Central region" and has a whole province intersecting with the Central Coast (Thua Thien - Hue), the topic of tourism development linkage between the two regions was raised quite late compared to other regions. Until now, the seminar on this topic has just been organized. This partly reflects the low level of development and the low attractiveness of linkage of tourism in the North Central region.

Representatives of travel companies talk with Mr. Le Minh Thuong - the person who is taking care of 5 heritage fig trees in Nghi Thinh commune - Nghi Loc

However, being late is still good, even very good, if understood in the sense that this is taking advantage of being late, a great advantage and always has "absolute" value in today's era. But in this context, in order to establish an effective tourism development link between the two regions, a serious and thorough assessment of the potential, advantages, problems and prospects for tourism development in the North Central region from a modern perspective is the most important task.

Assoc. Prof. Dr. Le Anh Tuan - Department of Training, Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism: "Tourism human resources play a very important role"

The Central region is home to many world heritage sites, with beautiful coastlines and beaches that can be used all year round, with a diversity of customs, traditions, cultures... that have the potential to attract and appeal to domestic and foreign tourists. In the coming time, tourism in the Central region tends to grow strongly in the context of Vietnam's policy of strongly developing heritage tourism products, cultural tourism and especially marine tourism products.

Chef training at Nghe An College of Tourism - Photo: Duc Chuyen

To develop tourism, the development of tourism human resources plays a very important role. According to the assessment of the current status of human resources serving the construction of the Vietnam Tourism Human Resources Development Plan for the period 2011 to 2020, tourism human resources in the North Central region (including Thanh Hoa, Ha Tinh, Nghe An, Quang Binh, Quang Tri and Thua Thien - Hue provinces) account for 8.7% and the South Central region (including Da Nang, Quang Nam, Quang Ngai, Phu Yen, Binh Dinh, Khanh Hoa, Ninh Thuan, Binh Thuan) accounts for 7.3%. Thus, in general, tourism human resources in the Central region account for 16% of the total tourism human resources of the country.

Thus, with the tourism development potential of the Central region, the need for human resource development to serve the requirements of regional tourism development is very large.

Dr. Do Thi Thanh Hoa - Institute for Tourism Development Research: "Challenges in linking the development of sea and island tourism in the North - South Central regions"

Similarities in natural conditions, natural resources, cultural activities, and similarities in tourist markets (market segments, etc.) are both advantages for product development linkages and difficulties for product development and linkages.

Tourism products of localities in the region are “similar” to each other, leading to difficulties in creating tourism attraction, building unique/specific products and finding the “answer” to the question “what to connect and how to connect?” to create diversity, difference, uniqueness and appeal.

Specifically, these are challenges such as: Although the quality of tourism products has been improved, there are still many issues that need to be considered; Specific products for the region have not been developed; There are many seaports but the seaports serving tourism have not met the needs and development trends, and have not created connections. Tourist ships are having to dock at the same ports as cargo ports, so the quality of service as well as technical conditions at these ports have not met the quality requirements and expectations of tourists...

Nghe An and Da Nang signed a tourism cooperation agreement in 2014 - Photo: Dao Tuan

Dr. Do Cam Tho - Institute for Tourism Development Research: "Promoting professionalization of promotion activities and brand development"

To ensure the conditions for linking promotion and brand development, first of all, regions under the coordination mechanism or localities themselves need to have a plan to organize training courses on promotion skills, organize experience exchanges between localities. Experiences in successfully implementing and organizing promotion campaigns, risk management, and destination branding.

Promotion plans between localities need to be consulted with each other, accordingly, joint promotion activities need to be implemented synchronously, uniformly, on the same scale and participation mechanism. Localities need to regularly update and learn from experience to jointly implement modern promotion forms or channels, suitable to market trends.

It is necessary to promote electronic promotion, improve the attractiveness and features of the website, participate in promotion through social networking channels, build market trust through trust and introduction of celebrities or influential people.

Introducing Nghe An tourism products in Lam Dong - Photo: Dao Tuan

Localities in each region need to place links on the website, and localities in the linked region with the same product line also need to place links on the website. Not only placing links, but information and articles need to demonstrate the high connectivity and promotion of tourism in the region and inter-regional linkage products of the North and South Central regions.

In fact, the tourist market of the North Central region currently exists and the main target of attracting domestic tourists while the South Central region attracts a more balanced number of international and domestic tourists and is one of the regions attracting an important number of international tourists in the country. Thus, the target of promotional activities of the two regions is different, leading to different promotional activities and market attraction.

Accordingly, international and domestic markets need to be approached in different forms, tools, channels, messages, languages, images, and sounds that are suitable for the habits and socio-psychological characteristics of domestic and international markets. Therefore, the linking process needs to pay special attention to each content and promotional activity based on clearly identifying the target market to choose to participate in each promotional campaign.

Duc Dung(take note)