Determined to Unlock Tourism Potential

Tay

Ninh is a southeastern province and a key economic zone of southern region. With important traffic axis such as Trans-Asia Road, Highway 22B and other important transport projects running through it, Tay Ninh is becoming the crossroad of international economic corridors connecting the key southern economic region and ASEAN countries, as well as of national economic corridors linking the Central Highlands with the Southwest. With its advantages of geography and transportation infrastructure as well as high potential, Tay Ninh has huge opportunities to develop provincial tourism to new heights. Cultural and spiritual tourism development

Tay Ninh has great resources to develop most tourism types, in which the most favourable could be spiritual and cultural tourism.

Ba Den Mountain – the highest mountain of the southern region, bearing a beautiful story about fidelity – has high spiritual value and is a pilgrimage destination which receives more than two million visitors each year. Every year in the first lunar month this place holds the Ba Mountain Spring Festival, a month-long event attracting over 1.5 million visitors. The attraction has mysterious caves and craggy paths leading to the summit. It also is a symbol of Vietnam’s heroic history, being one of the military bases in the resistance war period, a great resource to develop discovery, adventure or historical tourism. Ma Thien Lanh is a valley surrounded by three mountains. With a cool climate, it is an ideal location for a high-class resort.

Cao Dai Temple is the centre of Caodaism, a religion founded in Tay Ninh in 1926. With the unique architecture of the Holy See, the festival music of high cultural value, big festivals held in January, the Religious Banquet for Great Mother and the Nine Goddesses held in the eighth lunar month, Tay Ninh Holy See is a unique site in the province, attracting millions of domestic and international tourists each year.

On border tourism, Tay Ninh has built the Moc Bai duty-free supermarket system to encourage tourists’ border gate shopping. The province also has developed the Moc Bai eco-tourism zone covering 600ha. Travel agencies have organised tours with Tourism Cambodia.

However, taking into account all its’ potential and advantages, it could be said that Tay Ninh has yet to fully exploit provincial strengths in tourism development, especially cultural and spiritual tourism. Tourism products remain monotonous and of poor variety, seriously lacking attractive services and entertainment to keep tourists for longer stays. Some main attractions like the Holy See, the historical Central Office for South Vietnam, Moc Bai border gate, Lo Go – Xa Mat National Garden and Dau Tieng Lake remain as unrealized potential due to lack of efficient investment.

Tay Ninh has two international border gates of Moc Bai and Xa Mat, 99km away from the city centre. Annually, the province brings in more than three million passengers passing through Moc Bai and Xa Mat, but the proportion of international tourists to Tay Ninh remains low, accounting for only one percent of total arrivals. Most of them are one-day visitors, reflecting inefficiency in keeping foreign tourists.

Creating mechanisms to attract investment

After evaluating potential limitations as well as challenges for the provincial tourism development, Tay Ninh has been focusing on building projects and planning in line with current development conditions and the conditions of international economic integration, including the master planning on tourism development in Tay Ninh province to 2020 and orientations toward 2030 approved by the chairman of Provincial People’s Committee in Decision 59/2013/QD-UBND dated 19/12/2013 and the master planning of Ba Den National Tourism Zone in Tay Ninh to 2020 and vision towards 2030 approved by the Prime Minister in Decision 2383/QD-TTg dated 29/12/2014.

Mr Le Quang Chanh, Deputy Director of the Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism of Tay Ninh, said that in order to encourage enterprises, the province would build a portfolio of investment projects with preferential policies and mechanisms for each project, would reform administrative procedures to support businesses from the stage of license to implementation; Organize seminars on attracting investors; Look for and welcome investors, especially strategic investors, to create attractive tourism products, prioritising hotels of three-star standard and above; Develop a system of high-quality tourism products: amusement parks, tourism stops, and; Improve the quality of spiritual and belief tourism products and develop support products in Ba Mountain Tourism Zone to bring in more visitors.

In addition, the province would organize seminars on exploiting tourism potential, consulting experts about the development orientation of Tay Ninh’s key tourism products in the future, as well as measures to build a distinctive brand for Tay Ninh tourism.

For travel companies in the province, the Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism would organizations famtrip delegations, inviting travel agencies from Ho Chi Minh City and media to get involved in the searching and construction of new tourist routes. The agency also would create conditions for provincial tourism businesses to directly contact, connect tours and make contracts with major partners in Ho Chi Minh City through tourism fairs and exhibitions, both domestic and international.

Besides, Tay Ninh would focus more on the investment, upgrade and renovation of cultural relics and historic sites; investment in the development of eco-tourism products, community tourism and traditional villages; investment in the protection of tourism resources and environment; Investment in the promotion of tourism products and research in tourism market exploitation, improving competitiveness for tourism; The training of human resources for state’s managers for tourism, as well as the retraining and in-place training for tourism enterprises.

With inherent potential, determination of local authorities and cooperation from businesses and investors, it’s expected that Tay Ninh tourism will have more breakthroughs in the future, contributing more significantly to the local socio-economic development.

Hoang Ngoc

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