Vietnam’s waterway tourism asleep amidst potential

A lack of concerted efforts and a poorly-funded infrastructure have hindered development of Vietnam’s waterway tourism despite the country’s great potential, officials and entrepreneurs said here last Friday.
It is frustrating for a country crisscrossed with waterways when there are still few and unappealing waterborne travel products, they said at the seminar “Developing waterway tourism in HCMC and Mekong Delta” which took place on board the tourist boat Far East Pearl.
Vu The Binh, head of the Travel Department under the Vietnam National Administration for Tourism, said that “waterway tourism is Vietnam’s strength, but we have very few products to meet the demand for this special tourist type.”
Besides, the development is spontaneous and lack of orientation too, he said, citing how HCMC and the Mekong Delta lacked facilities like boats, harbors, and stopovers for tourists. Binh admitted that the lack of such developments was due to the absence of a clear and consistent policy to encourage enterprises to invest more in new projects.
La Quoc Khanh, deputy director of the HCMC Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism, shared Binh’s view, saying that up to now the city has not built a wharf for tourists. Meanwhile, he said, there are few attractive stopovers like Binh My Ecotourist Park in Cu Chi District.
He also complained about a lack of vision in the city’s waterway master plan.
“The city has devised a long-term plan for developing its waterway network and ports, but this plan does not mention tourist landscapes. Understandably, most of new bridges across city rivers have been built with minimum clearance, blocking navigation of big boats, while the riverside landscapes are monotonous,” he said.
Khanh of the city’s tourism department therefore proposed both immediate and long-term solutions, including the need to strengthen cooperation between the city and neighboring provinces to design new waterway tours and more destinations.
“The city from next year should start developing a network of tourist wharfs, especially along the three main waterways from Bach Dang Wharf to Cu Chi, Can Gio and Dong Nai,” he said.
At the seminar, other speakers from related provinces like Dong Nai, Tien Giang, and An Giang as well as entrepreneurs agreed that all waterway-travel firms should join forces for better products and services.
According to La Quoc Khanh, the city has a waterway network stretching 975 kilometers linking the city with neighboring provinces, especially the Mekong Delta region and the Eastern Sea.