The conference was honored to welcome Mr. Ha Van Sieu, Deputy General Director of Vietnam National Administration of Tourism; Mr. Nguyen Thuc Hien, Vice Chairman of the People's Committee of Can Tho city; leaders of People's Committees and Departments of Tourism of Ninh Binh, Binh Dinh, Quang Ninh and other provinces, cities; representatives of Vietnam National Administration of Tourism, Tourism Associations of provinces, cities, and Mekong Delta region; Centers for promotion of investment, trade, tourism in provinces, cities, as well as travel businesses.

At the conference, the provinces of Ninh Binh, Quang Ninh, and Binh Dinh introduced their specific tourist attractions and tourism resources. With the theme “Cooperation to breakthrough”, the conference’s goal is to effectively promote the potential and the image of Ninh Binh, Quang Ninh, Binh Dinh, and the Mekong Delta city of Can Tho; promote cooperation in tourism development, improve the efficiency of inter-regional tourism development connection activities; thereby, contributing to socio-economic growth and attracting tourists to the affiliated localities.

Mr. Tran Song Tung, Vice Chairman of Ninh Binh Provincial People's Committee, said that tourism linkage is an inevitable issue for each locality in order to exploit the potential advantages of developing the tourism industry, contributing more to the local budget. According to him, regional linkage, and chain linkage to develop specific tourism products is one of the important solutions to raise the level of tourism in the region and each locality. “Three localities of Quang Ninh, Ninh Binh, and Binh Dinh have unique cultural and natural characteristics and converge many factors to develop different types of heritage tourism, eco-tourism, convalescence, cultural tourism- festivals, sea and island tourism, “said Mr. Tung.

Specifically, Quang Ninh is a coastal province in the Northeast region, where Ha Long Bay is located – a natural wonder of the world; Binh Dinh has blue sea, white sand beach, and many famous historical and cultural relics. Ninh Binh has many beautiful landscapes, is a sacred land, that used to be the capital of the first centralized feudal state of Vietnam, associated with the three dynasties of Dinh, pre-Le, and Ly. “In particular, Trang An scenic complex was recognized by UNESCO as a world cultural and natural heritage, the first mixed heritage of Southeast Asia,” said Mr. Tung.

Besides, the Mekong Delta is one of the potential and important markets for the three provinces of Ninh Binh, Quang Ninh and Binh Dinh, especially in the period when provinces are developing strategies to attract domestic tourists. the Mekong Delta is known as the world of the river region, and at the same time, has the largest ecosystem of coastal mangroves and mangrove forests in Vietnam as well as the diversity of cultural types, especially, the art of Don Ca Tai Tu has been recognized by UNESCO as a representative intangible cultural heritage of humanity.

Mr. Nguyen Thuc Hien, Vice Chairman of the People's Committee of Can Tho city, said that in the first eight months of this year, 13 localities in the Mekong Delta attracted about 30 million visitors, including more than 8 million visitors staying over. As a result, this has helped bring revenue from tourism to localities in the Mekong Delta by more than 21,000 billion VND. The cooperation programs to develop tourism in the region have been implemented effectively, and tourism promotion activities in the whole region have been promoted. Moreover, there has been a significant change in the tourism branding of the Mekong Delta.

Vice-Chairman Nguyen Thuc Hien expressed his wish that the workshop on inter-regional tourist destination promotion between Quang Ninh, Ninh Binh, and Binh Dinh provinces with Mekong Delta provinces would be an opportunity for localities, investors, and businesses to exchange and share experiences on difficulties, obstacles, and policies to attract and develop tourism. Moreover, the event is also an opportunity for the parties to establish cooperative relations, and propose solutions to promote connectivity and tourism development.

Addressing the event, Deputy Director of the Vietnam National Tourism Administration Ha Van Sieu said that the workshop on inter-regional tourist destination promotion between Quang Ninh, Ninh Binh, and Binh Dinh provinces with Mekong Delta provinces showed the dynamism, creativity, and innovation of each locality to develop tourism. Furthermore, it is necessary to increase the depth of promotion of outstanding tourist destinations and products of each locality.

Since the government allowed the reopening of tourism on March 15, 2022, Vietnam’s tourism has recovered strongly, especially inbound tourism. Mr. Ha Van Sieu suggested the local government direct the departments, agencies, and sectors to create more favorable conditions for tourism businesses and localities. In particular, it is necessary to facilitate mechanisms and policies both in terms of passenger transshipment contracts as well as incentive policies and incentive programs to expand business activities.

In addition, the inter-regional linkage needs to be maintained regularly, especially in tourism promotion activities, to share information, experience, and implement general promotion programs at home and abroad, contributing to bringing tourism in the whole country in general and provinces, in particular, to recover, develop strongly and sustainably.

“With great efforts of localities, direction and thoughtfulness of local authorities and specialized agencies, engagement of enterprises and support of local people, tourism has gained development momentum. Particularly, domestic tourism has exceeded its level in 2019, the time before the COVID-19 pandemic,” said Ha Van Sieu.