Building Nghe An into a tourist center of the North Central region

(Baonghean) - With great potential and advantages, Nghe An can develop diverse types of tourism, improve efficiency, create a breakthrough in restructuring the province's economy, and actively contribute to implementing Resolution 26 - NQ/TU with the goal of becoming a tourism center in the North Central region by 2020. Comrade Ho Duc Phoc - Secretary of the Provincial Party Committee gave Nghe An Newspaper reporters an interview about the orientation and solutions to promote tourism economic development in the coming time.

Reporter:Dear Secretary, how do you evaluate the potential and prospects for economic and tourism development in Nghe An at present and in the future?

Comrade Ho Duc Phoc:Nghe An is a large province located in the center of the North Central region, with great potential for tourism development. Regarding human resources: Nghe An is the land that has produced many famous historical figures, scholars, scientists, and cultural figures such as Mai Hac De, poet Ho Xuan Huong... In particular, Nghe An is the homeland of President Ho Chi Minh, the great leader of the Vietnamese people, a world cultural celebrity and national liberation hero. Currently, the Kim Lien - Nam Dan relic site, a system of relics associated with the childhood of President Ho Chi Minh, has been recognized by the Government as a special national cultural relic.

Comrade Ho Duc Phoc introduces the stele at Quang Trung Temple for Professor - Academician Ho Hoang Mat. Photo: Sy Minh

With the tradition of fighting for national liberation, conquering nature and society, Nghe An has a rich culture, history, and cultural and architectural treasure with more than 1,000 recognized relics. Of which, 125 relics are ranked at the national level. As a province with many ethnic groups living together, each ethnic group has its own cultural identity and language rich in tradition. Nghe An is the cradle of unique folk culture, with many valuable intangible cultural heritages, typically with folk songs, singing in the fabric guild, singing on the ferry... Visitors to any festival in Nghe An province can enjoy this unique form of cultural activity. Among those values, Vi Dam folk songs are in the process of preparing a dossier to propose recognition as an intangible cultural heritage representing humanity. A rich cultural tradition is a very important condition to promote tourism development.

Chau Tien water wheel

Procession ceremony of the Dao Ngu Pagoda relic

Bai Lu Tourist Area

Nghe An's natural resources are rich and diverse, still preserving their wild beauty, not much affected by humans, typically the Pu Mat, Pu Huong, Pu Hoat primeval forest system which has been recognized by UNESCO as a World Biosphere Reserve. Nghe An has a coastline of over 80 km, with many beautiful beaches, of which Cua Lo beach with a history of 107 years is a typical example, becoming a coastal tourist city with developed services. From the central beach, connecting to form tours to expand the tourist space to the sea such as Lan Chau peninsula, Ngu island, Mat island. Along the coastal route, a series of beaches are also being planned for investment and development such as: Bai Lu high-class tourist area (Nghi Loc), Dien Thanh beach tourist area (Dien Chau), Quynh beach tourist area (Quynh Luu)... Vinh city, after more than 5 years of being recognized as a Class 1 urban area, is affirming itself as a dynamic urban area, a cultural and economic center of the North Central region. The advantage of its location along the Lam River, with Dung Quyet mountain... are very important conditions for Vinh to become an urban area with its own characteristics, a tourist destination of the province and the whole country. Western Nghe An with its diverse natural terrain and diverse ecology has many historical, cultural and scenic relics: Vac Village archaeological site (Thai Hoa), Chau Tien ancient Thai village (Quy Chau), Thai community cultural village in Mon Son (Con Cuong); The system of beautiful caves and waterfalls: Tham Om cave, Bua cave, Xao Va waterfall, Khe Kem waterfall... is very favorable for developing cultural and historical tourism, eco-tourism, and adventure tourism.

In addition to the many advantages of natural resources and human resources, the transport infrastructure including ports, airports, border gates, markets, and hotel systems are being invested in and gradually completed, serving well the development of tourism and service economy. Nghe An also has a trans-Vietnam railway and road route, National Highway 1A, and Ho Chi Minh Road passing through, and is also one of the important gateways of the East-West economic corridor connecting Myanmar - Thailand - Laos - Vietnam with the East Sea through Nam Can border gate and Thanh Thuy border gate. These are extremely important potentials and advantages for Nghe An to expand economic cooperation and exchange and promote tourism development with countries in the region.

Reporter:As someone who used to hold the leading role in Cua Lo coastal tourism town and had many creative contributions in leadership and direction to quickly build Cua Lo into a civilized and modern coastal tourism city, could you please give a more specific assessment of Cua Lo's potential in the province's tourism economic development strategy?

Comrade Ho Duc Phoc:Cua Lo is a key tourist city of Nghe An province, established on August 29, 1994, according to Decree 114/ND-CP of the Government. With an area of ​​28.2 km2, the current administrative structure includes 7 wards with a population of nearly 60,000 people. Cua Lo beach is naturally long, has a gentle slope, fine sand, clear and clean water, is favored by domestic and international tourists, and is rated by the World Environment Organization and the Vietnam National Administration of Tourism as one of the two cleanest beaches in our country. Sea tourism and resort tourism in Cua Lo began in 1907 when the French built a resort, opening a new era for tourism development. To date, Cua Lo has been recognized as a type III urban area. In 2013, Cua Lo was selected by the Prime Minister and the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism to be planned as one of 11 coastal tourist cities in the North Central region. In particular, Resolution No. 26-NQ/TU on the direction and tasks of developing Nghe An province until 2020 emphasizes the orientation: Building Vinh City into the center of the North Central region in terms of finance, trade, tourism, science - technology, and training; together with Cua Lo, developing into an economic growth pole and spearhead of the province's growth. Therefore, Cua Lo has an important position, the locomotive and driving force for tourism development in Nghe An.

After 20 years of construction and development, from a pristine beach, Cua Lo has affirmed itself as a tourist urban town with great appeal, bustling, services for tourists are invested in construction and modern development, natural and humanistic environment is harmonious. Currently, along with expanding the space towards the sea and extending to the North and South, promoting the synchronous development of the urban infrastructure system, connecting with the infrastructure system of districts and towns, especially Vinh City and provinces with tourist urban areas will create new development prospects for Cua Lo. To do so, Cua Lo needs to focus on the following orientations:

- Build Cua Lo into a tourist center connecting with domestic and foreign tourist centers.

- Cua Lo must reach out to the East Sea, taking Mat Island and Ngu Island as highlights for developing sea tourism.

- Cua Lo must continuously improve its service infrastructure to become a resort, beach, entertainment, shopping, recreation, education and training place in the region.

Reporter:Nghe An has great potential and prospects for tourism development. However, the exploitation of tourism types as well as the promotion of the development of this “smokeless industry” still has many limitations. So what are the limitations that need to be overcome, comrade?

Comrade Ho Duc Phoc:In recent times, tourism economic activities have achieved many great results in contributing to the budget, creating jobs, affirming the important economic sector, actively promoting rapid economic restructuring. However, compared to the potential advantages and set goals, they have not yet been achieved. That is, tourism activities in the province are still developing mainly in terms of breadth, quality, and efficiency; tourism products are still monotonous, there are not many large investment projects, especially foreign investment projects to create unique and attractive tourism products, so the number of international tourists is still low. Most of Nghe An's tourism businesses are small in scale, lacking connectivity, travel business activities are still lacking in professionalism, weak competitiveness, especially the ability to reach the international market is still limited. Although accommodation business has a fairly large revenue scale, the average room and room occupancy rate is only approximately 50%, and the quality is uneven. The tourism environment in some areas, especially coastal areas, is at risk of degradation due to the lack of a synchronous infrastructure system. The quality of the tourism staff has not met the increasing demands of tourists, there is a lack of good managers, operators, tour guides, and skilled workers... Therefore, the tourism industry and localities need to recognize these limitations and weaknesses to develop plans, directions, and solutions to overcome them.

Reporter:In order for tourism to become one of the province's important economic sectors according to the development orientation to become a tourism center of the North Central region by 2020, what tasks does Nghe An need to focus on in the coming time, Comrade Secretary?

Comrade Ho Duc Phoc:Resolution 26-NQ/TU of the Politburo has clearly stated the orientation: "Strive to build Nghe An into a fairly developed province by 2015, creating the foundation to basically become an industrial province by 2020; a center of finance, trade, tourism, education - training, science - technology, health, culture, sports, high-tech industry of the North Central region". Resolution No. 05 - NQ/TU of the Provincial Party Standing Committee (17th term) on developing tourism in Nghe An in the period 2011 - 2020 and the Tourism Development Program for the period 2011 - 2015 of the Provincial People's Committee have determined the goal that by 2015, Nghe An will become one of the tourism centers of the North Central region, an attractive destination for domestic and foreign tourists, with modern facilities and techniques, commensurate with being a key tourist area of ​​the country.

To achieve the above goal, first of all, Nghe An tourism needs to strongly shift to in-depth development, focused investment on the basis of exploiting outstanding strengths in resources to build unique, high-quality tourism products with the motto of taking cultural values ​​to create differences, taking the ecological environment for sustainable development. In particular, the focus is: Effectively exploiting the Kim Lien relic complex associated with the system of relics in Nam Dan area to become a national tourist area, a special highlight for Nghe An tourism brand; sustainably developing sea resort tourism products on the basis of building Cua Lo town into a tourist city with a clean environment, diverse and attractive services; building Vinh into a center for coordinating tourists and tourism services, shopping, entertainment in the province and in the region. Step by step, invest in exploiting and developing eco-tourism associated with the culture of ethnic communities in Con Cuong, Tuong Duong and Pu Mat National Park, Quy Chau - Que Phong area; exploit intangible cultural values ​​such as folk songs, vi, dam, traditional festivals, and craft villages to serve tourism development.

To achieve the above goal, it is necessary to carry out the following tasks and solutions:

Firstly, investing in building and completing infrastructure to serve tourism development such as upgrading Vinh airport; opening Thanh Thuy border gate to form tours from the Northeast region of Thailand - Laos - Nghe An and some international tourist routes by road; completing infrastructure and services at exploited tourist destinations....

Second, develop diverse types of tourism. Integrate and link types of tourism to create a reasonable and attractive tourism chain such as sea tourism - cultural and historical tourism - eco-tourism...

Third, improve the quality of tourism human resources to meet immediate and long-term development requirements on the basis of diversifying training and development forms suitable to the province's tourism human resource development needs; encourage linkages between training institutions and businesses with training methods according to addresses and orders.

Fourth, improve the efficiency and professionalism in tourism promotion activities, focusing on building the brand of Nghe An tourism destinations as well as the brand of Nghe An tourism enterprises to create an image for friends and tourists.

Fifth, strengthen state management of tourism, build a mechanism to mobilize resources to invest in identified key tourism projects, first of all in tourism infrastructure for Cua Lo Town to become a tourist city; policies to encourage the development of specific types of tourism: community tourism, craft village tourism, etc., promptly resolve difficulties and problems of investors in the tourism sector, promote administrative reform, create opportunities and incentive mechanisms to attract investors in this field.

Reporter: Thank you, Provincial Party Secretary!

Huu Nghia

(Perform)