New Opportunities of Hoa Binh Tourism

Hoa Binh province is known to be an origin of “Hoa Binh culture” - the cradle of Vietnamese ancient culture. Besides, tourist and humanity resources are diversified, plentiful and attractive with 184 historic sites, cultural sites and natural landscapes together with unparalleled cultures of ethnic groups like Muong, Thai, Mong, Tay and Dao expressed in building architectures, beliefs, customs and traditional festivals.
This place is also landscaped with many high mountains, forests, caverns, rivers, lakes and natural reserves. Specially, Hoa Binh Lake has been approved to be listed in the master plan for tourism development in northern mountainous region by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism. This will become a national tourist site, an advantage for Hoa Binh to develop tourism.
To make the tourism sector a key economic sector, Provincial Party Committee of Hoa Binh province issued the Resolution 11-NQ/TU dated August 21, 2007 on the tourism development in Hoa Binh province in the period from 2007 to 2010 and orientation to 2015. The Resolution set out standpoints, objectives, tasks and solutions for development and construction of general and detailed plans for investing in infrastructure development, creating tourism products, promoting the popularity of its attractions, calling the investment capital, heightening the quality of human resources, and applying preference policies to attract investors.
The development of tourism infrastructure is a high priority of all administrative levels. Traffic systems to tourist areas in Kim Boi, Yen Thuy, Mai Chau, Luong Son districts Hoa Binh City, the capital of Hoa Binh province, have been invested in and upgraded. The tourism development planning is attached much importance and the province has outlined and approved six tourism development plans; namely Hoa Binh provincial tourism development master plan in the 2001 - 2010 period, Hoa Binh Lake tourism development plan for the 2006 - 2020 period, and tourism development plans for Luong Son, Kim Boi, Tan Lac and Da Bac districts. Based on the planning, many tourism projects have been invested in and many tourism products have been created to attract visitors. Typical projects are V-Resort, Thac Bac Long Cung Resort, duck farms, Viet Muong Culture and V'star recreation centre.
In recent years, the Hoa Binh Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism outlined plans to investigate, evaluate and classify tourism resources, generalise investment activities, develop and utilise tourism resources to prepare for the construction of Hoa Binh tourism development master plan for the 2011 - 2020 period based on the master plan for tourism development in northern mountainous and midland areas. The planning is built on the sustainability of tourism development in Hoa Binh, the northwest region and the entire nation to create typically local tourism products, build attractive destinations and form inter-province tours to lure more visitors to Hoa Binh province.
According to Ms Hoang Thi Chien, Director of the Hoa Binh Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism, the Hoa Binh tourism industry is seeing new opportunities. In recent years, the provincial tourism sector maintains steady growth, diversifies tourism products, improve the service quality and upgrades tourism infrastructures. By 2009, the province has seven resorts and 180 accommodation establishments, including 21 hotels and 152 motels. The number of visitors in the province averagely increased 31.2 percent in the 2006 - 2008 period. In 2009, Hoa Binh estimated to welcome 840,000 visitors and make tourism revenues of VND260 billion. The province is adopting innovations to attract investment and enacting suitable policies. All administration levels create favourable conditions for investors to complete licensing procedures. Currently, the province has additional 40 tourism registered and underway tourism projects. With persevering efforts, Hoa Binh will be an attractive destination for domestic and international visitors.