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ing them to spread the word to other
countries worldwide.
Hotels are also getting in on the act
too, organising attractive new events to
teach foreign visitors how to cook Viet-
nam’s traditional dishes and introduce
them to the country’s famous tea and
coffee. As a result, the province served
7.5 million tourists in 2013, up 7 per
cent on 2012.
In addition, a promotion pro-
gramme has been launched to educate
residents about the need to develop
a sustainable tourism industry through
activities like environment protection.
“We are trying to erase bad images
in Halong Bay. Tourists now can feel
more comfortable when they come to
Quang Ninh,” said Long.
Though Quang Ninh has imple-
mented many activities to improve the
tourism industry in recent years, it still
faces the same challenge of every tour-
ism destination in Vietnam - a lack of
tourism services. At present, tourists
only stay in Quang Ninh for 1.5 nights
on average. “Tourists are interested in
the natural scenery in Quang Ninh, but
they are not attracted by other tourism
services,” says Long.
However, this issue could be miti-
gated in future as the government is
planning to establish a special econom-
ic zone in Van Don, focusing on the
tourism industry.
Right now, Van Don is under con-
sideration to become a modern eco-
nomic zone, including high quality
marine tourism services, high class en-
tertainment services, and a modern and
unique literary center as well as a busi-
ness, finance and international trade
center. Most significantly, a state-of-art
integrated casino resort will be built in
Van Don to make it a hub of entertain-
ment and tourism in Southeast Asia.
“In the future, Quang Ninh will be
a place for relaxing, entertainment and
play,” Chinh predicts.
18
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QUANG NINH IN FOCUS
Halong Bay is the centre of Quang Ninh’s tourism
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
Visitors to Quang Ninh
Total number of visitors
International visitors (million)
Revenue (trillion dong)
2013
2014*
2015*
2020*