HBO – The Steering Committee for Tourism of Hoa Binh province held a conference in Kim Boi district on July 24 to deploy tourism development tasks in the last six months of 2017. Vice Chairman of the provincial People’s Committee Nguyen Van Chuong, who is also head of the steering committee, chaired the conference.
An overview of the conference
During the January-June
period, Hoa Binh saw growth in both number of tourists and tourism earnings.
The province welcomed over 1.37 million visitors, including 123,000 foreigners,
making up 61 percent of this year’s target. The tourism sector earned a total
of over 357 billion VND (15.7 million USD) in the period.
Based on their assigned tasks, the steering board’s members coordinated with each other and achieved the targets set at the beginning of this year. For example, the Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism – the standing office of the steering committee – advised the provincial People’s Committee to submit Resolution No. 14 on developing Hoa Binh lake tourism zone to the provincial Party Committee for approval, and introduced attractive destinations in the locality in 2017.
Meanwhile, the Department of Planning and Investment advised the People’s Committee to adopt four tourism development projects with a combined capital of over 420 billion VND. The steering boards for tourism of Hoa Binh city and districts fulfilled their tasks as advisors for all-level leaders to issue and implement tourism development plans in their respective localities.
Together with these achievements, there remained several shortcomings, including low-quality tourism products and lack of new, attractive and highly competitive products. The mobilisation of investment resources in tourism faced a lot of difficulties, while the tourism investment promotion work was still weak.
At the conference, members
of the steering committee approved a plan to organise the festival of outstanding
Vietnamese community-based tourism villages in
They also discussed several issues arising in the tourism development process in the first half of this year, such as investment attraction, infrastructure, land fund and telecommunication services at homestay sites.
Nguyen Van Chuong, Vice Chairman of the provincial People’s Committee and head of the steering committee, acknowledged ideas raised by the committee’s members and assigned the Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism to complete the report.
He asked the members and localities to focus on providing consultancy for all-level leaders in deploying tourism development plans in the second half of 2017, closely following main tasks, and early solving shortcomings and weaknesses to implement the tourism-related work effectively.
The Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism was requested to coordinate with other sectors to build specific working regulations for units involved in tourism, while the Department of Transport was required to have a plan to inspect the register of ships and electric cars operating around Hoa Binh lake and Mai Chau and Lac Thuy tourism sites.
He also asked relevant agencies to build plans to connect Hoa Binh’s tours and tourist destinations with those in neighbouring provinces to create an effective tourism chain, and to ensure that all local tourism sites are covered with wifi service.
For the festival of outstanding Vietnamese community-based tourism villages 2017, Chuong urged the Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism to discuss with the Vietnam National Administration of Tourism to soon put forward plans to promote Hoa Binh’s tourism.
Do Ha