Students visit Hải Phòng's Navy Museum, one of 19 different destinations in the programme combining tourism and education. Photos anhp.vn

HẢI PHÒNG — Hải Phòng has recently carried out a programme combining tourism and education with a view to popularise the city's culture and history to the wider community.

The programme, jointly organised by the Department of Tourism and Department of Education and Training, introduced cultural, historical and experiential tourism products associated with environmental protection and career guidance for students in the city.

The organisers set up four tours which spread through 19 destinations, landmarks, heritages and vocational centres around the city. All these places met requirements of good facilities, safety, and suitability for the general education programme. At the same time, the tours would help students-of-all-ages and tourists exploit cultural, historical and natural environmental values.

Among the places were Hải Phòng Museum, Navy Museum, Dáu Island Tourism Resort, Gia Minh drug rehabilitation centre, and colleges and universities.

According to Trần Hữu Hùng of the Department of Tourism, the programme received positive feedback from students.

Students clean Đồ Sơn Beach, an activity in Hải Phòng's new tourism product that introduces culture, history, environmental protection and career guidance to participants.

Nguyễn Hương Thủy Ly of Trần Nguyên Hãn High School was impressed with what she saw during a day travelling Cát Bà National Park and Trung Trăng Cave in Cát Hải District.

The 17-year-old student said she and her friends learned about many different trees in the park, part of the World Biosphere Reserve.

"We were given experience and basic skills when staying and walking in the forest, by forest rangers. Later, we were allowed to take part in the process of making specimens of rare flora and fauna species," said Ly.

The students also enjoyed the feeling of living in the Trung Trang Cave where traces of ancient Vietnamese people nearly 7,000 years ago were still visible.

She said these experiences combined with school lessons give her and friends much more vivid knowledge than just learning from textbooks alone.

Nguyễn Thị Huyền Trang, an eighth grader of Cấp Tiến-Bạch Đằng Secondary School, and her classmates were taken to Scholar Nguyễn Bỉnh Khiêm Relic Site and Hải Phòng Tourism College.

Trang was really interested in the career guidance activities at the college. She said she discovered her passion in travelling through the experience.

Not only students but also teachers appreciated the educational tourism programme. The tour guides actively and strongly supported them in all activities, organising tours and team building activities for their students of all ages.

Students listen to a tour guide describing a historic site.

"We have welcomed many groups of students to our centre. Here, they experience and learn about historical sites of the district," said Lưu Thị Thu Huyền, director of Đồ Sơn Historical Site Management and Tourism Service Centre.

"This is a very meaningful programme that receives the attention of students and their parents. They become an important promotion channel to promote our tourism products to domestic and foreign friends."

Lương Anh Văn, chairman of the Board of Directors of Vintravel International Tourism Joint Stock Company, said the programme also made it easier for travel agencies to choose destinations that ensure service quality and are suitable for expanding school tourism.

He said this tourism product could be organised all year round, adding a new choice for tourists visiting Hải Phòng which mainly focused on marine tourism products.

It also motivated travel agencies to proactively improve the quality of tour organisation services, increase competitiveness, and gradually professionalise school tourism products.

Deputy Director of the Department of Tourism Vũ Huy Thưởng believed that if this new tourism programme was well organised it would receive more support from schools and lure high attention and response of parents because of a large number of students in the city.

He said the product had huge potential to develop in the future and the Department of Tourism would continue to collect opinions from agencies and units to improve its quality. At the same time, the department would review, research and add more places and attractions to the programme to bring student-tourists truly quality, safe and useful products. VNS