Tourists visiting Hue heritage
From the Hue - Da Nang - Quang Nam perspective
It has been 12 years since the three localities of Hue - Da Nang - Quang Nam have signed the commitment to develop tourism cooperatively. The slogan "Three localities - one destination" has become a big brand on Vietnam's tourism "map"; and was assessed by the Vietnam National Administration of Tourism as a model of linkage in the country. The mode of operation is that each locality alternates as the leader of each year; the leader will be the locality to plan and preside over activities under the unification of all three localities.
Mr. Truong Thanh Minh, Director of Thua Thien Hue Tourism Promotion Information Center, said that the biggest effect in the three localities' link is the ability to promote the destination. Each locality alone does not have adequate resources to promote itself in many markets. When all three localities put together their strengths, the ability to promote is greater and can reach bigger markets which were previously very costly, such as Western Europe.
It is the linkage that helps localities have the connection, support and safety for visitors to the three localities; the linkage has helped the three localities share human resources, such as tour guides, operating forces in enterprises, and experiences in tourism activities and business ...
According to Mr. Truong Thanh Minh, the first years of cooperation faced many difficulties as the tourism products of the three localities overlapped. Each locality developed its own tourism products without coordination to complement each other, so it led to more competition than cooperation. Recently, the three localities have recognized and formed common products, such as "The Road of Central Heritage", "The legendary Ho Chi Minh Road", "The Green Highlands Road", "The East-West Corridor”, and etc., which have helped increase more effective cooperation, ensuring that visitors combine all three destinations in their itinerary.
Hue is known for its many festivals (Photo: Street Festival at Hue Festival 2018)
However, albeit having over a decade of cooperation, there are still shortcomings, especially when promotion organization has not yet to be consistent in identifying markets. Da Nang mainly attracts Chinese and Korean tourists by urban tourism. Meanwhile, Hue and Quang Nam choose the Western Europe market. This is mainly due to objectivity because each locality has its own strengths. Therefore, despite having discussed the mechanism and general development policies of the three localities numerous times, they have not yet uniformly implemented those mechanism and policies.
Solving the issue of strength similarities
For many central provinces, each province has the strength of the coastline and heritage culture. This is the problem that needs to be solved in the development link. As analyzed in the link between the three localities of Hue - Da Nang - Quang Nam, it is the advantages and characteristics of each locality that have led to the attraction of visitor markets being various and uninformed.
Vice Chairman of the Provincial People's Committee, Mr. Phan Thien Dinh said that with the plan of planning the new economic development area of the government in the coming time, the conference "Tourism Development in Central – Central Highlands" in Hue, which takes place from February 15 to 16 is the opportunity for localities to advise the government on policies to promote cross-linking, avoiding overlapping of the central coastal tourism products. This may be a new opening in the region's future tourism development link.
Specifically, cooperation links will be divided into sub-regions and localities in the region based on the comparative advantages of each sub-region and locality participating in tourism development. It is possible to adjust the development planning in accordance with the strengths of each locality in each period; establishing the unity of tourism space through the development of infrastructure connecting territorial areas in the Central - Central Highlands region.
Building a common tourism product chain for the regions is a prerequisite. Therefore, the three localities of Hue - Da Nang - Quang Nam need to better exploit the "Road of Central Heritage" tour. At the same time, it is necessary to connect 3 more world cultural heritages with typical cultural values in the region such as Champa culture, Sa Huynh culture, Dong Truong Son ethnic culture and coastal culture to increase the variety of tourism products. The "Road of Central Heritage" also needs to expand the connection with the "Central Highlands Green Road" to increase the diversity for inter-regions.
In addition, linkage with Laos and Cambodia to connect Vietnam's "Road of Central Heritage" with the world heritage of the Ancient Capital of Luang Prabang (Laos) and Angkor Wat Complex (Cambodia) to create the "Indochina Heritage Road" within the framework of cooperation between the three countries Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. The "Three countries - one destination" is also a direction to be promoted in the future, which should be discussed.
Story and photos: Duc Quang