Tourist ships docked in front of Dau Go cave on Ha Long Bay (Source: VNA)Quang Ninh (VNA) – The northern coastal province of Quang Ninh hastaken measures to improve the quality of the fleet of tourist ships operatingon Ha Long Bay – a UNESCO-recognised World Heritage Site.
Since the beginning of this year, Ha Long city’s People’sCommittee suspended operations of 36 tourist ships on the bay, while 41 othersforced to stop working.
According to the city People’s Committee, there are currently504 cruise ships and 68 high-speed canoes running on Ha Long and Bai Tu LongBays.
At a recent meeting reviewing State management over cruiseships and canoes on Ha Long Bay, Chairman of the provincial People’s CommitteeNguyen Duc Long asked for the gradual replacement of old wood ships bynewly-built steel ones. He also reiterated the province’s policy of no increasein the number of ship docking overnight on the bay.
Long stressed that new vessels have to meet higher qualityrequirements and have higher capacity.
It is necessary to intensify management over canoes andkayaks, and work out plans to monitor high-quality cruisers, he stated.
He also requested the Ha Long Bay Management Board to set upa tourist operation centre at the Tuan Chau international passenger port, andstrengthen inspections to detect and punish ships violating transport rules onthe bay.
Quang Ninh welcomed 86,000 tourists, including 19,000foreigners, during the three-day National Day holidays from September 1-3.
The figures represented year-on-years rises of 20 percentand 25 percent, respectively, according to the provincial Tourism Department.
Also during the three-day period, 1,400 ships took more than30,000 tourists, including 12,000 foreigners, on sight-seeing tours on Ha LongBay.-VNA
VNA
