Delegates have look at local specialties displayed at the conference. Photo courtesy of Bắc Giang Province

BẮC GIANG - A signing ceremony on tourism development co-operation between the central province of Thanh Hóa and the Red River Delta cities and provinces was held recently in Bắc Giang province. 

The ceremony was part of a conference held in Bắc Giang to promote tourism development between Thanh Hóa and the expanded Red River Delta area. 

Participating at the conference were tourism companies from Thanh Hóa Province and the expanded Red River Delta including Bắc Giang, Hà Nội, Hải Phòng, Quảng Ninh, Hà Nam, Bắc Ninh, Hưng Yên, Hải Dương, Vĩnh Phúc, Thái Bình, Nam Định and Ninh Bình. The participants exchanging knowledge in tourism management, attracting investment and tourism products. 

At the conference, all the participants agreed that Thanh Hóa Province and the Red River Delta area have favourable conditions for promoting tourism product development to lure local and international tourists. 

Thanh Hóa is known as "miniature Việt Nam", possessing rich and unique tourism resources of national and international value. These resources help the province to develop different tourism products including leisure travel, culture discovery tourism, eco-community tourism and adventure tourism.  

In 2024, the province will put into operation new tourism service products such as: Sea Square, Sun World Sầm Sơn Water Park and Flamingo Linh Trường Marine Ecotourism and Resort Project complex, along with a series of more than 145 other attractive cultural, sports and tourist events.

"The northern cities and provinces are important tourism markets which need to further develop," said Nguyễn Văn Thi, standing deputy-chairman of Thanh Hóa Province's People Committee and head of the Tourism Development Board. "Every year, the province and the Red River Delta cities and provinces co-organise events, seminars and fairs to promote tourism."

Bắc Giang Province is among the Red River Delta cities and provinces that have rich natural resources for developing diverse types of tourism, according to Phan Thế Tuấn, deputy-chairman of Bắc Giang People's Committee.

"The Red River Delta area has many world heritage sites," said Tuấn. "Hạ Long Bay in Quảng Ninh, Vĩnh Nghiêm Pagoda in Bắc Giang, Thăng Long Citadel in Hà Nội, ca trù (ceremonial singing) and quan họ (love duet), all are recognised by UNESCO."

Vĩnh Nghiêm Pagoda in Yên Dũng District, Bắc Giang is home to over 3,000 printing woodblocks enlisted by UNESCO as a World Documentary Heritage in the Memory of the World Programme in 2012. It also enables visitors to understand more about Trúc Lâm Zen Buddhism, which originated in the pagoda.

"It is necessary to closely co-operate between Thanh Hóa and the Red River Delta cities and provinces to make good use of diverse and rich cultural and historical values and unique tourism products with a view to bringing the advantages of each locality into play," Tuấn added. 

Co-operation between Thanh Hóa and the expanded Red River Delta area to develop tourism should bring efficiency commensurate with available resources in accordance with the orientation of the tourism sector, according Nguyễn Trùng Khánh, director general of the Việt Nam National Administration of Tourism under the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism.

"This co-operation needs to focus on research and implementation of specific and practical activities to respond to the campaign 'Vietnamese people travel to Việt Nam - Việt Nam I love,'" said Khánh at the conference. 

"It should collaborate to build and introduce incentive packages to stimulate domestic tourism, giving priority to using each other's services, co-ordinate the implementation of destination promotion activities and work step by step with the administration to participate in advertising and promotion abroad to attract international tourists," Khanh said.

Along with surveying and investing in developing tourism products suitable for each tourist group, Khánh also stressed that the provinces need to focus on exploiting cultural values in tourism development and find different cultural values based on similar products among localities.

At the same time, associations and businesses are more closely connected to develop a chain of innovative, high-quality tourism products, integrating many services and creating more interesting experiences for tourists, he said. - VNS