Vietnamhas more than 100 national parks and nature reserves, and approximately40,000 tangible and intangible cultural heritages. The country also has18 World Heritages recognised by UNESCO, including two naturalheritages, five cultural heritages, eight intangible cultural heritagesand three royal documents heritages.
The country possessesrich natural resources and an ancient and durable culture forming itsnational identity. These offer potential momentum for tourismdevelopment. Vietnam’s tourism has formed outstanding destinations andtours to attract visitors, namely the Northern Rectangle Hanoi- Ha Long-NinhBinh -Hai Phong, the central chain Da Nang – Hue, the South CentralCoast with two focal points NhaTrang (Khanh Hoa province) and PhanThiet(BinhThuan province), Ho Chi Minh City and neighbouring provinces inthe South, Da Lat (Lam Dong province) in the Central Highlands.
Alongwith tying the most prominent cultural heritages to other destinationsin the tour system, Vietnam began investing in infrastructure andimproving tourism services. Vietnam also strengthens heritage tourismbranding.
Vietnam tourism development strategy to 2020 with thevision to 2030 also sets out that Vietnam’s tourism, as a driving forceof economic development, needs to focus on building high quality,unique, diverse and comprehensive tourism products; simultaneously,clearly study the demands of target customers from different markets,from which to create premium, high value tourism products, becoming apopular competitive tourist brand regionally and internationally.
Untilnow, Vietnam has initially exploited and successfully connectedcultural heritages and natural heritages to form tourism centres in thearea with comprehensive tourism products. National Tourism Year 2015 inThanh Hoa province with the theme "Connecting the World Heritages", inwhich the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism will coordinate withThanhHoa to organise many activities, along with others held by Phu Tho,Hanoi, Ninh Binh, Nghe An, Ha Tinh, Quang Binh, Quang Tri andThuaThien-Hue.
However, according to Nguyen Van Tuan, DirectorGeneral of Vietnam National Administration of Tourism (VNAT), what wehave done is only the first steps; we still have a long way to go. Withthe theme "Connecting the World Heritages," National Tourism Year 2015”is expected to contribute to raising public awareness about tourismdevelopment, and promote links between localities participating in thisevent in order to promote tourism Year and attract investment fortourism development in the region, as well as inter-regionally.
Vietnam is open and pro-active in the integration with the worldeconomy. In many countries in the ASEAN region, the connection and tradeamong countries will be strengthened especially in 2015 when theformation of common economic community facilitated trade, services anddevelopment investment. Vietnam also follows that trend as it createdlinks for tourism development as well as regional and multi-nationaldestinations.
Vietnam has a regional connection programme "Threecountries - one destination" Vietnam-Laos-Cambodia, focusing on theconnection between landmarks, typical heritages of the three countries.
Recently,Vietnam has also participated in the connection "Five nations - onedestination" including Vietnam-Laos-Cambodia-Myanmar-Thailand. This is atypical pattern for the connection, boosting tourism development ofneighbouring countries in the Mekong region downstream.
Byparticipating in these programmes, countries including Vietnam will bein a healthy competition on the basis of mutual benefit, and promote theheritage values of the area. During the past years, Vietnam has focusedon promoting the heritage value for tourism development but resultsachieved are not really impressive, even with world heritages. Accordingto experts, Vietnam Tourism lacks unique tourism areas and tourismproducts compared with those in the region and the world. Tourismefficiency is far lower than countries like Thailand and Singapore.
Therole of tourism enterprises are also important; therefore, there mustbe a connection to raise people’s awareness about conserving andpromoting heritage values, increasing benefits of the community, tourismbusinesses, from that promoting tourism development.-VNA