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long Carnival helps to showcase every-
thing that Quang Ninh has to offer. Rich
in culture, history and national treas-
ures, this is clearly just the beginning.
Despite the financial crisis, Ha-
long Bay is still attracting an increasing
number of foreign tourists who come
to board cruise ships such as the Star
Cruise, Costa, Silver Sea, Seaborn, Nau-
tica and SS Voyager. Tens of thousands
of high-end travellers have visited Ha-
long Bay on theses luxury cruises.
The Malaysian Star Cruises operates
from Sanya to Halong Bay, with an aver-
age of three ships weekly. A new ocean
route between China’s Fangchenggang
city and Halong Bay has been launched
officially by Hong Gai Travel to bring
hundreds of tourists to the bay every
Friday. The Chinese Henna cruises also
plans to run three to four trips per week
from Halong Bay to Danang, while its
sister Beiyou cruise uses Tuan Chau port
as a stop twice a week.
At the moment, the local authori-
ties are trying their utmost to create
many more new and attractive spots
to diversify tourism products for inter-
national cruises in Van Don and Bai Tu
Long Bay.
Not plain sailing
Despite all this, the province is still
considered as developing. Even Halong
Bay is seen as relatively untapped. Many
tourism experts complain about the re-
cent promotion campaigns for Halong
Bay, claiming the images are out-of-
date and the messages are unclear.
The main issue is the length of
stay, which remains very short for most
visitors at just one or two days – sub-
stantially less than the average length
of time spent in Danang, Nha Trang or
on Phu Quoc Island. There are many
reasons for this, but chief among them
is the poor infrastructure for tourism.
“Quang Ninh and Halong Bay tour-
ism is based mainly on the natural treas-
ures, while other tourism products are
developing,” says Pham Lan Anh of Vic-
tory Cruises.
“Quang Ninh province does not
aim to promote its tourism potential to
be a leisure and MICE tourism paradise
alike Danang, Nha Trang or Phu Quoc.
The strong point of Quang Ninh is
sightseeing tourism, the local author-
ity chooses the right way to develop,
but carries it out at a still slow pace.
Therefore, it has not met the increas-
ing requirements in both quality and
diversity of tourism services and prod-
ucts,” says Le Van Quang, marketing
manager of VSpirit Cruises.
Time to change
“We need to show guests a pret-
tier, safer and cleaner Halong Bay to
convince them to return and to stay
longer,” says Le Phuong Nhi, manager
of Indochina Sails.
“The local authorities should create
many more policies to encourage busi-
nesses to upgrade their services while
contributing to preserve the natural
environment,” says Le Manh Quang.
He adds they ought to speed up the
process of building infrastructure and
training the labour force for tourism.
“The state officials should issue
long-term plans to develop new tour-
ism products and raise the awareness
of the locals and tourists about pre-
serving environment. They also need
to improve the service standards,” says
Pham Lan Anh.
Bobby Nguyen of Active Travel Asia
believes it is key to have close coop-
eration between local authorities, busi-
nesses and the local community to cre-
ate strength.
Such veteran Halong Bay business-
es as Indochina Sails and Bai Tho Cruis-
es have invested a lot to promote the
attraction of Halong Bay to the world.
Throughout regular international
tourism fairs in Europe, Asia, America
and Australia, Indochina Sails introduce
their high-end services and tourism
products in Halong Bay to luxury mar-
kets for upper leisure and MICE tourists.
It also hosts FAM trips to invite in-
ternational and local press, media and
film delegations to attend their tours
to Halong Bay and other destinations
around the province.
Bai Tho Cruises works to preserve
Halong Bay’s environment by coordinat-
ing with the National University Hanoi
and Japan’s JICA to replace normal gas
with bio gas.
Younger companies such as VSpir-
it Cruises and Active Travel Asia hold
cleaning campaigns and ask their staff
to collect rubbish at fishing villages and
clean beaches regularly. They also run
green tours with bicycles.
Quang Ninh province and Halong
Bay are mystical and magnificent, but
local authorities, travel companies, ho-
tels and boat operators must cooperate
together to ensure longer stays in the
land of the dragon.
QUANG NINH IN FOCUS
Halong Carnival has added colours to the local attraction