Historical relic Con Dao is proving a magnet to visitors and investors. The image of southern Ba Ria-Vung Tau province's Con Dao island has over the past months appeared consecutively in the world-famous television channels and magazines like France's TF1 television channel, the US's New York Times and Travel and Leisure magazines and the UK's Lonely Planet magazine.
The island's Six Senses resort has won the world's best award on construction work and design within the International Commercial Property Awards under the US's Bloomberg news firm.
Rich in forest resources, sea and national revolutionary historical relics, Con Dao was visited by nearly 60,000 tourist arrivals last year and the number touched 42,850 in this year's first half, up 63 per cent on-year.
The number of investment projects into Con Dao keeps rising, with six foreign invested and five locally-invested projects having total registered capital of $56.35 million and $28.8 million, respectively. For instance, the $38 million Six Senses invested by Con Dao Resort Company has come into operation, Saigon-Con Dao Hotel, Cong Doan guest house and the ATC resort are also operating in the island. Many other projects will be invested in the island like the $38.4 million Viet Nga resort, the project to expand Six Senses, the Poulo Condor resort and the $250 million high-end Hotel Resort Regency Hyatt tourism area.
Under the adjusted master plan on building Con Dao until 2030 and the master plan on Con Dao's socio-economic development until 2020 and a vision to 2030, the island's authorities will approve the detailed planning on constructing functional areas of Co Ong, Ben Dam and Con Dao National Park. Investors are encouraged to invest into high-end tourism products there.
Ba Ria-Vung Tau's authorities issued in April, 2012 Decision No765/QD-UBND approving the planning of constructing the Con Son central area. Under the decision, the area will become Con Dao's urban area having administrative, tourism and service functions. This area will be important in protecting and enhancing historical values of relics used for high-quality tourism services.
It is clear that with the provincial authorities' determination to develop Con Dao and the island's rich natural resources, Con Dao has become quite an attractive tourism destination, which has the most potential in environmental friendly tourism development in the province. ded to develop Con Dao into a high-quality tourism-service area.
Con Dao is one of the four areas prioritised for tourism development in southern Ba Ria - Vung Tau province. The provincial authorities have decided to develop Con Dao into a high-quality tourism-service area.