Overview of the seminar

The seminar had the attendances of Deputy Director General of VNAT Ha Van Sieu and representatives of departments, functional units under VNAT; representatives of People’s Committee of Thanh Hoa Province and some localities in the province; representatives of Thanh Hoa’s Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism and related agencies and organizations; domestic tourism enterprises and press agencies.

Speaking at the seminar, Nguyen Ngoc Hoi - Vice Chairman of People’s Committee of Thanh Hoa Province said, the host of Visit Viet Nam Year 2015 with the theme “Networking World Heritage in Viet Nam” is the opportunity for Thanh Hoa to promote tourism potentials, at the same time call investment for developing tourism, and affirm the position of Thanh Hoa’s tourism. In recent years, Thanh Hoa Province has focused on investing tourism infrastructure in the key tourism areas; selecting and prioritizing to develop specific and advantage tourism products, such as beach tourism, spiritual tourism, craft village tourism, eco-tourism…; at the same time has directed to implement the solutions for building green – clean – safe – friendly – attractive tourism environment. Thus, indicators of tourism reached an average growth rate of nearly 13%/year. In 2015, Thanh Hoa tourism is expected to welcome 5.5 million tourist arrivals, including 125,000 international tourist arrivals; tourism receipt is estimated at over VND5 trillion.

Nguyen Ngoc Hoi - Vice Chairman of People’s Committee of Thanh Hoa Province speaking at the seminar

In the list of world heritage in Viet Nam recognized by UNESCO, Thanh Hoa has World Cultural Heritage Site of Citadel of the Ho Dynasty (Vinh Loc District). The province needs the attention and consultancy of tourism experts, enterprises and cultural heritage researchers to promote well the inherent values of Citadel of the Ho Dynasty and develop it to one of attractive destinations in the journey “Connecting World Heritage in Viet Nam” in the near future.

In the framework of the seminar, the participants discussed to provide solutions to connect world heritage in Viet Nam, of which most participants agreed with some solutions as: focusing on strengthening tourism promotion activities, developing quality tourism products; ensuring security, safety, environmental hygiene and tourism stimulation; upgrading transportation system and infrastructure in tourist sites and areas; improving the quality of service, human resources and state management capacity for sustainable tourism development... The participants also proposed to pilot Duong Lam Ancient Village (Son Tay Town, Ha Noi) and Citadel of the Ho Dynasty as attractive cultural tourist site in the journey connecting heritage. In particular, for Thanh Hoa tourism only, it’s necessary to enhance to implement tourism stimulation program in the low tourist season; focus on connecting the relics with world heritage site in the province at the same time take interest in tourists, service quality, management capacity in developing tourism products.

Deputy Director General of VNAT Ha Van Sieu concluding the seminar

Concluding the seminar, Deputy Director General of VNAT Ha Van Sieu appreciated highly the cooperation of Thanh Hoa Province and localities owning the heritage in the survey program “Networking world heritage in Viet Nam”. Deputy Director General emphasized, to promote effectively potentials and strengths of heritage in tourism activities, in the next time, Thanh Hoa Province and other provinces/cities in the journey connecting world heritage need to enhance the linkage, of which focus on connecting relics, heritage sites as well as boost the connection between industries, localities and people in tourist sites and tourists, toward the target of increasing the experience for tourists and bringing benefit for the parties involved in tourism.

Thu Giang
Photo: Cong Trinh