The vice chairman said at a workshop ‘Building and developing tours - routes and specific products of Mekong Delta tourism’ jointly organized by the Mekong Delta Tourism Association and the Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism of Can Tho City, the Economic and Urban Newspaper today.
Speaking at the conference, Vice Chairman Nguyen Thuc Hien said that together with localities in the Mekong Delta, Can Tho City is focusing on developing quality, diverse, and inclusive tourism products and high added value according to market orientation and suitable to the needs of travelers.
However, according to the Vice Chairman, tourism industry of Can Tho City in particular and the Mekong Delta in general are facing difficulties and challenges as the industry has similar tourism products and tourism methods.
Moreover, the region's tourism industry doesn't fully exploit the potential and strengths of uniqueness of each locality.
The Mekong Delta has a diverse and rich ecosystem with seas, islands, estuaries, mangrove forests, and islands, with many diverse biosphere reserves, national parks, and nature reserves. In addition, the Mekong Delta also has more than 735 km of coastline and more than 150 large and small islands with many pristine beaches. These are very valuable tourism resources that other regions don’t have.
Provinces in the Mekong Delta region have a lot of potential to become eco-tourism and spiritual tourism destinations. In recent years, the Mekong Delta tourism has launched programs to promote tourism, especially in communication, promotion, and the formation of tours and tourist routes connecting famous historical relics and cultural sites to attract a large number of domestic and international tourists.
After the Covid-19 pandemic, the Mekong Delta tourism has had a strong recovery. It is estimated that in 2023, the total number of visitors to the ‘land of nine dragons’ reached nearly 45 million, an increase of 20.4 percent over the same period in 2022 including more than 1.8 million international visitors. The tourism revenue reached nearly VND 46 trillion (US$ 1,837,663,815), an increase of 42.6 percent over the same period in 2022.
According to data released by the General Statistics Office, Vietnam welcomed nearly 1.6 million international visitors in March, up 4.4 percent over the previous month and up 78.6 percent over the same period last year. In the first quarter, the number of visitors reached more than 4.6 million, an increase of 72 percent over the same period in 2023 and an increase of 3.2 percent over the same period in 2019.
