Tourists visit Bà Đen Mountain in Tây Ninh Province. — VNS Photo Thu Hằng

HCM CITY — Travel linkages between regions in the country are vital to realise the tourism potential of localities and contribute to efforts to rejuvenate the tourism industry, Deputy Prime Minister Vũ Đức Đam has said.

Tourism co-operation and linkages between regions will help the recovery of travel and tourism firms that have been hit hard by the coronavirus crisis, the Deputy PM said at a conference on tourism linkages in the Southeast region held in Tây Ninh Province on Sunday.

The initiative to develop tourism linkages will play an important role as a driving force for Việt Nam’s tourism development in the coming time, he said.

The country is now focusing on promoting the domestic travel market to rejuvenate the tourism industry in the 'new normal' conditions.

The successful kickstarting of the domestic travel market will be good preparation for promoting the international travel market when the country reopens, he said.

At the conference, leaders of the Southeast region, including HCM City and Đồng Nai, Bình Dương, Bà Rịa-Vũng Tàu, Bình Phước and Tây Ninh provinces, signed an agreement on tourism linkages to develop inter-provincial travel products, diversity travel products and services, and increase tourist spending.

The agreement outlines collaboration in five areas, including State management in tourism, development of tourism products, tourism promotion activities, human resource development, and investment in tourism development.

Nguyễn Thành Phong, chairman of the HCM City People’s Committee, said the Southeast region, which is considered the country’s most dynamic economic region, has huge resources and potential for tourism.

However, localities in the region have independently developed their travel products, making it impossible to fully tap the region’s potential and create attractive travel products combining popular destinations in the region, he noted.

New travel products

At a conference on development of inter-provincial travel products in the Southeast region held on the same day, nine travel firms in HCM City inked cooperation agreements with 20 tourism service providers in the five southeast provinces to develop inter-provincial travel products at reduced costs.

Travel firms said that traffic infrastructure between localities are convenient for connectivity in the region, while facilities in the region have a wide range of upscale hotels and resorts that meet the demand of tourists.

The region offers a wide range of tourism activities such as eco-tourism as well as religious, historic, cultural, leisure and culinary tourism.

Võ Anh Tài, deputy general director of Saigontourist Group, said the company would annually develop at least three travel products in the region.

The company hopes to increase the number of tourists traveling to the region by 10-20 per cent each year.

Three new inter-provincial travel products were launched at the conference, including two-day tours from HCM City to Tây Ninh and Bình Dương, HCM City to Bình Dương and Bình Phước, and HCM City to Đồng Nai and Bà Rịa-Vũng Tàu, with discounted prices ranging from VNĐ1.39-1.49 million (US$60- 64) per person.

In the first half of the year, the number of foreign tourists visiting the region dropped by 65 per cent, compared to the same period last year, to reach 1.7 million.

Last year, the Southeast region welcomed 10.7 million international tourists, a year-on-year increase of 27.8 per cent.

Tourism revenue of the region was estimated at US$7 billion last year. — VNS