Ninh Binh makes the best of tourism potential

The province's tourism sector has been standing in front of a period of strong growth period with numerous appealing mechanisms and policies for  investors. The local tourism sector has seen major changes since Trang An was recognised as a world culture and nature heritage by UNESCO in 2014.

Statistics showed that the average growth in the number of visitors to Ninh Binh reached 12% per year in the period of 2010-2019, while revenues increased by 23.6% on average annually.

Though being badly-hit by the Covid-19 pandemic in the 2020-2021 period, Ninh Binh has resumed tourism activities and seen rapid recovery. In 2022, the province welcomed 3.7 million tourist arrivals, including nearly 60,000 international visitors.

Particularly, in the two first months of 2023, Ninh Binh served 2.33 million tourists, a 6-fold rise from the same period last year.

Recently, Ninh Binh has been ranked 7th among the 10 most welcoming regions on Earth by Booking.com.

The ranking was based on an analysis of more than 240 million verified customer reviews on the Dutch-based online travel agency website Booking.com.

The website wrote that Ninh Binh has diverse terrains of forests, mountains, rivers and seas. It is home to numerous famous destinations. It was also chosen as the filming venue for Hollywood movies such as "Pan and Neverland"; "The Quiet American; and "Kong: Skull Island".

The image of Ninh Binh's tourism has been advertised widely, while tourism service providers have strictly complied with regulations on business activities.

During its process of development, however, the tourism sector has still showed some weaknesses such as the limited regional linkage. Some new tourism potentials have not been exploited and managed effectively; tourism products are poor while there are few tours connecting destinations in other provinces and cities; promotion programmes are scattered and unprofessional and there is a lack of skilled workforce. Hence the number of tourists staying overnight remains low and their stay remains short while tourism revenue is not commensurate with the numbers of visitors.

To address the above shortcomings, Ninh Binh has been implementing  measures to improve the quality of tourism services, reduce prices of products, step up tourism promotion, protect landscapes and the environment in a bid to create unique tourism products of the locality.

In particular, it has paid heed to the planning work, developing brandnames, improving the quality of manpower, launching new tourism products associated with local unique culture, and enhancing the linkage of tourism products in an attempt to help the tourism sector develop sustainably and effectively.

Translated by Nguyen Thuy