2 - 11 - 2020
Kien Giang Trade, Tourism and Investment Promotion Center organizes a survey delegation of tourism businesses inside and outside the province to discover a new direction to exploit and renew the tourism industry in Ha Tien-Kien Luong.
Ha Tien with amazing natural surroundings loved by tourists
Re-organize the 'home' to welcome 'guests'
According to the report conducted by the People's Committee of Ha Tien city (Kien Giang), up to now, Ha Tien city has been invested quite synchronously in terms of technical and social infrastructure. In which, urban transport infrastructure and roads around islands have been upgraded and embellished, electricity and water are provided stably, health and education are properly invested... Particularly, hotel investment for visitors is increased significantly. Currently, Ha Tien city has 174 accommodation establishments for tourists, including 27 hotels: two 3-star hotels, six 2-star hotels, and twelve 1-star hotels, with a total of 2,453 rooms.
However, the annual number of domestic and foreign tourists to Ha Tien increased by just over 1%. Out of a total of over 2.3 million visitors, the number of international visitors is only 24,538 visits. In the first 9 months of 2020, due to the impact of Covid-19, the number of visitors decreased significantly. From the beginning of the year until now, Ha Tien welcomed 1,355,009 visitors, reaching 45.17% of the plan, and decreased by 39.05% over the same period last year.
Vice-Chairman of the People's Committee of Ha Tien - Mr. Lieu Khac Dung, shared that over the past time, Ha Tien has gradually improved its tourism infrastructure as earlier this year, it pulled the national power grid to the Hai Tac archipelago and spread white sand on beaches with a budget of billions VND. In addition, the urban technical infrastructure system is upgraded such as asphalted traffic on roads, underground cables, and new residential, commercial, and entertainment areas are formed along the riverbank and seaside creating a spacious, clean and beautiful landscape. Recently, a number of projects encroaching on the sea with big budgets have been deployed by investors to expand Ha Tien coastal city. Ha Tien city strives for the 2020-2025 term to upgrade the city to class-2 urban.
According to Mr. Dung, Ha Tien's ideal location is just 1 hour from Phu Quoc island by train and 1 hour by car from Chau Doc tourist area (route N1), and 2 hours to Rach Gia city. Ha Tien has formed a tourist center connecting continuously from the mainland to Phu Quoc island and vice versa. Therefore, the number of tourists mainly from Chau Doc and Phu Quoc to Ha Tien is crowded with an average visit of 2 days and 1 night. City government plan Ha Tien strives to come here to increase the length of stay from 3 days, 2 nights or more.
“From the beginning of the year until now, Ha Tien has urgently accelerated the investment and construction progress of tourist attractions such as Thach Dong, Da Dung, Mui Nai and embellished urban areas, upgraded the technical infrastructure of the tourist sites. The coastal road is expanded, the lighting system, and trees... Especially, this year the Government approved the planning task of Ha Tien, the local government takes advantage of all resources to reorganize the 'home' to welcome guests and gain significant momentum for next year's strong tourism development", Mr. Dung shared.
Ha Tien tourism infrastructure is improving
Refresh Ha Tien tourism
The completion of the Lo Te - Rach Gia expressway at the end of this year is a great advantage in terms of tourism for Kien Giang province in general and Ha Tien city in particular. However, the biggest obstacle is the National Highway 80 from Rach Gia to Ha Tien, which is only 90 km long and takes more than 2 hours by car. In addition, many travel agencies believe that, although Ha Tien has been upgraded to an urban area with many natural surroundings, there are still disadvantages to tourism activities. The biggest obstacle for Ha Tien is monotonous tourism products, especially tourism to islands created by locals spontaneously, there is a lack of professional investors in tourism and low quality of local human resources.
Director of Kien Giang Investment, Trade and Tourism Promotion Center, Ms. Nguyen Duy Linh Thao, said that Ha Tien currently faces many difficulties, but in the future, it can overcome traffic limitations as the National Highway 80 has been included in the highway planning by the Government for the period 2025 - 2030. The Tourism Authority of Thailand has negotiated with Cambodia to connect sea and land tourism to Vietnam. In particular, the road along the Gulf of Thailand passes through 3 countries from Thailand, and Cambodia, to Vietnam through Ha Tien international border gate.
"Travel agencies believe that the local government and businesses in Ha Tien need to pay attention to a professional tourism strategy for further information management and promotion, thereby increasing direct and widespread interaction within the country and nearby foreign markets. The forms of promotion will create rich and novel effects on tourism products and promote Ha Tien to target groups of domestic and foreign tourists."
Ms. Thao also shared that Ha Tien should choose to develop sea and island tourism as they are their main strength. Accordingly, must keep the pure wildness, combine with professional investors to create the most suitable resort, discovery, and sea entertainment destinations. At the same time, the locality needs to focus on developing specialized tourism human resources and developing community-based tourism. Create extreme convenience for visitors in terms of immigration procedures. Thereby, the local and businesses organize several sea festivals, and international entertainment competitions such as sailing, fishing, catching shellfish...
Many travel agencies inside and outside the province said that in the past time, Ha Tien - Kien Luong area has been slow in tourism development, so there are still unspoiled tourist attractions, especially Ba Lua archipelago, Dong Ho lagoon and other tourist attractions. The island near the shore is still unspoiled and has great potential for tourism to explore. According to a representative of Vietravel Rach Gia, the locality needs to have a strategic and step-by-step plan for professional investors to invest intensively in each island and key tourist destination. Which, the Hai Tac archipelago, 18 km from the shore of Ha Tien, is still unspoiled and is an excellent point for planning and management. "If Phu Quoc is a pearl island, the islands in Ha Tien and Kien Luong are golden islands, so the local government needs to plan 1/500 soon to manage it well," a representative of Vietravel Rach Gia said.