Vietnam to survey South Central tourist routes

The country’s tourism authority and travel companies plan to survey tourist sites in the south central region of the country to combine with local tourism departments to develop products for the region, a tourism official said.
Nguyen Van Tuan, head of the Vietnam National Administration of Tourism, told the Daily that the travel department would lead the trip. Along with activities to survey tourist routes there, participants will join a tourism conference to seek cooperation to develop tourism for localities in the region.
This is one of the most important survey trips organized by the country’s tourism body this year. The tourism agency hopes that it will help the tourism sector in the important region to make new tourism products.
Last month, in a meeting in HCMC, Tuan said that the region, especially HCMC, was the driving force for the development of the country’s tourism. For the reason, the authority needs to spend more effort to develop tourism products there.
“We (the department) and travel companies will join hands to make some survey trips and seminars to develop products in the South Central and the Mekong Delta regions,” Tuan said in the meeting.
A meeting on river tourism development will held in HCMC later this year.
According to a representative of the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, over 1.89 million international tourists visited Vietnam during the first half of the year, around 1.4 million to provinces and cities in the South, down 10% year-on-year.
Tuan said the tourism agency planned to make one more trip to survey tourist sites as well as a seminar for developing tourism in the Central Highlands.
“The tourist road named the World Heritage Road in the central region is up and running so we need to develop similar attractive products to woo more visitors,” he said.