Ha Nam Making Efforts to Foster Tourism Development

Amid the cold winter days and a busy atmosphere before the year-end, we had a meeting with Mr. Tran Van Tien, Director of the provincial Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism to review what the local tourism sector has done to bring the local tourism industry to be a major economic sector for its socio-economic development strategy by 2020.
How has the tourism picture of Ha Nam Province been changed over the past years?
Ha Nam is a province with a favourable geographical location on trans-Vietnam tourism route, particularly at the gateway of the south of Hanoi.
The natural tourism resources of Ha Nam Province is very diversified and abundant with diversified terrain and special landscapes such as Tam Chuc Lake, Ngu Dong Son, Luon Cave and Bat Canh Tien. Particularly, the dense river and lake network with poetic beauty of Hong River, Day River, Doi Mountain and the Chau River along with ecological system of the low rice area are distinguished characteristics which can be attractive to tourists in the current urbanisation trend. The province does not have many humanitarian tourism resources and historical monuments, but their value is outstanding such as Tran Thuong and Lang Giang temples, Ba Danh Pagoda and Long Doi Son Pagoda. The province boats special festivals such as Tich Dien (Spring ploughing festival) and Tran Thuong Temple festival. Many other typical traditional handicraft villages are Doi Tam drump village, An Hoa embroidery, Da Hoang weaving, folk ad cuisine culture. Ha Nam is home to famous celebrities such as Tam Nguyen Yen Do Nguyen Khuyen and Writer and revolutionary martyr Nam Cao.
Over the past time, Ha Nam’s tourism picture has seen changes and achieved good results based on exploitation of tourism potentials with two main product groups: natural tourism products (ecological, week-end ad countryside tours which are mostly at Kim Bang and Duy Tien tourism cluster and the basin area of the Day and Chau Giang rivers and cultural tourism products (spiritual, excursion, festival and handicraft villages tours which are a special tourism product in Ha Nam).
Combining tours to neighbouring localities such as trans-Vietnam trips along National Highway 1A; Ha Noi-Ha Nam-Ninh Binh, Quang Ninh-Hai Duong-Hung Yen-Ha Nam, Hanoi-Ha Nam-Nam Dinh-Thai Binh trips and tours to the North West. It is a good foundation for the development of Ha Nam tourism sector.
How has the province combined between developing the regional tourism development and building tours along with attracting investment in the tourism sector based on the advantage of being located in the Gulf of Tokin area?
With the favourable location, Ha Nam has actively joined hands with other localities to develop tourism products and lured investment in the tourism sector such as spiritual tourism axis Huong Pagoda-Tam Chuc-Trang An-Bai Dinh; Red River tourism and signing a cooperative agreement for tourism promotion with Hug Yen Province. Other activities include the construction of a policy mechanism to encourage both local and foreign investors in the tourism sector and diversifying tourism promotion activities as well as participating in fairs and tourism events.
After efforts, Ha Nam has been known as for its advantages to develop cultural, festival, spiritual, countryside and ecological tourism products. The cooperation for regional tourism development still shows modest results because it is mainly on paper. Localities have not yet reached an agreement to make an comment image for the region’s development.
What should be done to further develop the provincial tourism sector to match the locality’s long-standing culture and history?
To ensure for the sustainable development of Ha Nam Province’s tourism sector, I think that it is necessary to analyse and assess the real situation of tourism resources. All resource and advantages should be fully utilised to focus on tourism projects to form special products. Besides, the province needs to increase investment and expand scale as well as modernise equipment to sharpen tourism staff members’ capacity and managers as well. Other activities should include the further cooperation with other localities to make special tourism products in order to fully tap the provincial tourism potential.
Furthermore, it is vital to issue favourable conditions for investors, enterprises and organise in tourism business activities in Ha Nam. Propaganda activities to raise the public’s awareness of tourism development need strong support from the public and different agencies, which will help to facilitate site clearance and tourism management. It is also important to manage tourism activities well to offer an equal business environment for investors.
Thank you very much!