The Prime Minister has approved overall planning a master plan for tourism development in the Mekong Delta region until 2020 with a vision to 2030.
The plan aims to develop tourism in line with the region’s potential and advantages, affirm the region’s position in Viet Nam’s tourism map and enhance the position and role of tourism in the region’s development, thus improving the lives of locals and promoting the region to the country and the world.
The Mekong Delta region includes Can Tho City and 12 provinces - An Giang, Ben Tre, Bac Lieu, Ca Mau, Dong Thap, Hau Giang, Kien Giang, Soc Trang, Long An, Tien Giang, Tra Vinh, and Vinh Long – with a total area of 40,576.6 sq.km.
The region hopes to welcome 34 million tourists, including 3.5 million foreigners by 2020 and 52 million arrivals with 6.5 million foreigners by 2030.
The region targets total revenue of 25 trillion VND (1.12 billion USD) by 2020 and 111 trillion VND (5 billion USD) by 2030.
To achieve those goals, the region will focus on developing exciting tourism products and national tourism areas.
For tourism products, the region will exploit advantages to develop typical, appealing and highly competitive tourism products like experiencing life on rivers, ecological tourism, tours to cultural heritages, sea-island resort tourism, and entertainment.
The life on a section of a river in Mekong Delta (Source: VNA)
Tourism products in the region also include community tourism, rural tourism, tours to historic-revolutionary sites, and meetings, incentives, conventions, and exhibitions/events (MICE) tourism.
It will also pay attention to developing international markets, particularly Western Europe, North America, and East Asia.
Another major focus will be developing five national tourism areas.
The plan will develop five national tourism areas, namely Thoi Son in Long Lan Quy Phung Island in the Tien river between Tien Giang and Ben Tre provinces, Phu Quoc Island in Kien Giang Province, Nam Can – Mui Ca Mau in Ca Mau Province, Tram Chim – Lang Sen in Long An and Dong Thap provinces and Nui Sam in An Giang Province.
It also focuses on seven tourist sites - the Happy Land entertainment complex in Long An Province, Cu Lao Ong Ho in An Giang Province, the Commemorative Site for the Southern Don Ca Tai Tu and Cao Van Lau musician in Bac Lieu Province, Ninh Kieu Wharf in Can Tho City, Ha Tien Town in Kien Giang Province, Van Thanh Mieu in Vinh Long Province and Ao Ba Om in Tra Vinh Province.
The plan also aims to develop Can Tho City and Phu Quoc Island into tourism centres for the region and develop My Tho City in Tien Giang Province into a tourism centre of the region’s eastern tourism zone.
Based on the network of inter-regional tours, topic-based tours like forest, sea, Dong Thap Muoi wetland, U Minh, and Nam Can and rural exploration ecological tours will be created.
The region will also develop national and international tourism tours in collaboration with HCM City, Can Tho city, Ca Mau like the south coastal corridor route (Thailand – Cambodia – Rach Gia – Ca Mau) and tours via international border gates Ha Tien, Tinh Bien in An Giang Province, Dinh Ba, Thuong Phuoc, in Dong Thap, and Binh Hiep in Long An.
There will also be sea routes via ports in Can Tho and Phu Quoc and waterway routes on Tien and Hau rivers to Phnom Penh and Seam Reap in Cambodia.
International air tourism will be increased as well by upgrading and expanding Can Tho and Phu Quoc international airports.