The province now wants to further enhance its tourism facilities and market its potential by highlighting the many advantages the region has to offer by developing a very focused strategy for a robust tourism industry by 2030.
Mr. Nguyen Khanh Hiep, Director of the Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism in An Giang Province, said that the province currently has about 97 accommodation facilities which include one 4-star hotel, six 3-star hotels, seven 2-star hotels, and thirty nine 1-star hotel. There are 13 tour operators, including two domestic travel agencies and 11 international travel agencies. An Giang Province offers 15 sightseeing places to visit, besides various entertainment activities for tourists. Data collected in the last eight months of 2020 shows that tourist spots in the province had about 4.8 million visitors, almost reaching 74% of the yearly target, with revenue from tourism activities being about VND 3,060 bn, which is 77% of expected yearly revenue.
From now on till the end of the year, the province will focus on restoring the tourism industry by actively coordinating with other Mekong Delta provinces and also Ho Chi Minh City to implement many programs to stimulate tourism growth and attract more visitors. The plan includes developing new interesting and good quality products to offer to both domestic and international tourists.
According to Mr. Nguyen Khanh Hiep, one of the most important tasks in coming times will be to implement a strong tourism development strategy until 2030, which will effectively exploit tourism potentials, make tourism a growth industry and spearhead the economy. Tourism must help in increasing overall GRDP of the province, contribute to economic restructuring, develop the services industries, and also create jobs for the local people. An Giang Province must aim to build a brand name and strive to make the province into a vibrant tourist center in the Mekong Delta region.
By 2025, An Giang province is targeting ten million tourists, of which the proportion of overnight visitors will account for 30%. By 2030, the province wants to welcome 14.5 million visitors, and increase overnight long staying visitors to 35%. The estimated total revenue from tourism by 2025 is expected to reach about VND 7,000 bn, and to VND 10,000 bn by 2030.
In order to achieve the above targets, An Giang province will focus on building a quintessential high-quality tourism base to promote and highlight the local natural resources and key features. By prioritizing the development of cultural tourism and ecotourism, the indigenous value of natural resources and the local cultures will enrich the experience even more for visitors. Some products made locally will enhance the souvenir shopping experience for tourists and create an attractive value to the concept of a crafts village or a typical culinary experience, which would add to engaging the tourists into the local culture of the region.
The province is also looking into strongly developing the domestic market by drawing more visitors from Ho Chi Minh City, Hanoi, Da Nang, southeast and central provinces, central highlands, northern provinces, as well as other parts of the Mekong Delta. An Giang Province will focus on attracting cultural and spiritual tourists, offer festival tourism, ecotourism combined with relaxation, river exploration tours, garden visits, and step by step expand the market for thematic tourists and entertainment tourism. For international tourisms there will be an effort to attract more tourists from countries such as the US, France, Australia, Germany, Japan, South Korea and Cambodia.
In the future, An Giang province plans to attract more tourists from Western Europe, North America and Northeast Asia, especially countries such as Cambodia, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, and India. This plan can also extend to countries that suffer long drawn winter seasons such as UK, the Netherlands and Russia. Along with this, specific tourism products such as experiencing river life, the ecology, and cultural heritage tours can be promoted. In particular, An Giang province hopes to focus and attract market segment visitors with high spending capacity and for longer stay.
Mr. Le Van Phuoc, Vice Chairman of the People's Committee of An Giang province, affirmed that the province will continue to invest in improving its capacity and quality of tourism, infrastructure, promotional plans and branding tourism. The province will implement a master plan for tourism development and improve on training and retraining of tourism human resources; and build and promote an identity of the An Giang tourism brand with the aim of positioning An Giang tourism as a "safe, friendly and attractive” destination.
The province will also strengthen training of people to build a team of professional, skilled and impressive tourism personnel; create policies to monitor a vibrant development of tourism activities; improve conditions for trading in tourism products and services; make preferential policies to support tourism development investment in order to encourage and create favorable conditions for economic sectors to participate in building tourist accommodation; and also create interesting tourist products to attract tourists to buy and increase the GRDP revenue of the province.
