Nha Trang - Khanh Hoa has become a centre for sea tourism with strong attraction. However, in order to become an international maritime tourism and service centre in the spirit of the Politburo’s Resolution No. 09 NQ/TW, dated January 28, 2022, on the construction and development of Khanh Hoa province until 2030, with a vision to 2045, there's still a lot of work to be done.
Nha Trang coastal city.
Khanh Hoa has many advantages in terms of natural conditions, geographical location, natural resources, and especially landscape and ecological environment in marine tourism development. The good climate has created favourable conditions for tourism activities in Khanh Hoa to take place all year round.
In recent years, the province has been known as an attractive resort and beach entertainment destination with many high-class resorts and entertainment areas. Khanh Hoa tourist destinations are often associated with the sea, islands, nature and historical sites, with a mild climate, beautiful scenery and friendly people.
Many Nha Trang beach tourism addresses have appeared on social networks and have great attraction, such as: Robinson Island Nha Trang with its clear blue seas and unspoiled sands; Nha Trang's Yen Island with its natural scenery, fresh sea water and many caves full of swiftlet nests; and Diep Son Island with its unique walking path in the middle of the sea in Vietnam.
Because of that, most of the activities at the annual Nha Trang - Khanh Hoa Sea Festival are associated with the sea and islands. Specifically, Cau Ngu (Fish Worshipping) Festival is vividly recreated on Tran Phu Street. This festival preserves the unique culture of the inhabitants of the sea. This is true street art performed directly by fishermen. Viewers and performers blend together to form the festival space, according to folklore researcher Nguyen Tu Hai.
About 10 years ago, Nha Trang - Khanh Hoa strongly focused on investing in the construction of marine tourism infrastructure. In addition, many recreational services and sea sports in Nha Trang - Khanh Hoa have been put into operation, such as tourist boating, canoeing, windsurfing, boat racing, and beach volleyball.
In particular, the experience of viewing the sea by paragliding, hot air balloon, or model plane is loved by many tourists. Sports tourism, scuba diving tourism, and forms of tourism to discover local culture and enjoy food are also chosen by tourists. Local products related to the sea have also developed into a brand, bearing local imprints, significantly contributing to the development of products associated with tours.
According to the Khanh Hoa Provincial Party Committee, sea tourism makes an important contribution to promoting many other economic sectors; create more jobs and improve the lives of people in coastal areas; contributing to ensuring national defence and security, and protecting the marine and island environment.
However, according to economic experts, the results brought from sea tourism and services are still not commensurate with the great potential of Khanh Hoa. Marine tourism products are not diversified; the planning of many beautiful beaches is broken; the infrastructure of seas, coasts and islands is still weak and unsynchronised, and has yet to form an integrated marine economic system.
Some experts pointed out that Khanh Hoa's marine tourism products are still biased towards traditional resort tourism, there are not many activities to attract and stimulate the consumption needs of visitors, and there is a lack of fun activities, entertainment and large-scale nocturnal shopping to meet the needs of tourists. In addition, investment in innovation to improve the quality of sea tourism products has been slow.
Diving to explore the ocean in Nha Trang Bay.
Director of Khanh Hoa Tourism Department Nguyen Thi Le Thanh said that the industry is investing in upgrading existing sea and island tourism products; studying and developing tourism products suitable to the potential and advantages of the locality to link tourism products of the provinces in the region; and paying attention to promoting the cultural factors of each locality in the development of marine tourism in order to create its own mark and attract tourists.
Currently, the locality is proposing to the Government to consider the establishment of a supporting mechanism to attract investment in the development of connection transport infrastructure; and to consider adding Khanh Hoa to the list of localities that are allowed to experiment with extending the time of organising night activities to 6 am the next morning according to the project on night-time economic development in Vietnam.
According to Director of Khanh Hoa Tourism Department Thanh, Khanh Hoa is focusing on concurrently implementing the provincial plan for the 2021-2030 period, with a vision to 2050, along with regional and local plans, including master plans and detailed plans on the use of sea areas, coastlines and marine resources, creating the basis for the process of developing development strategies of marine economic sectors and fields.
Khanh Hoa will focus on synchronously implementing solutions on planning, developing infrastructure, and improving the investment environment, in order to mobilise all resources to promote the development of marine economic sectors in the direction of prioritising High quality sea travel services.
In the coming time, Khanh Hoa will continue to promote investment to improve the quality of existing marine tourism products and develop high-quality marine tourism products and services, in parallel with the protection, embellishment and development of marine resources and ecosystems, and improvement of the tourism environment to ensure long-term sustainable development.
In addition to actively promoting linkages and cooperation with localities, creating many "green" roads to connect tourism, the province also advocates building many programmes and policies to coordinate and stimulate flexible demand while encouraging tourism promotion to invite visitors back.
Phong Nguyen - Translated by NDO