Green tourism: Advantages of sea and island tourism

Hon Cau is beckoning                         

Early October, (in the middle of Lunar August), Hon Cau beach (Phuoc The - Tuy Phong) was quiet, the water surface was sluggish like a melancholy song. Fishermen analyzed that the monsoon was changing, so the southwest wind has retreated and the northeast wind has not arrived yet. Therefore, the sea is calm and besides the pandemic has been controlled, more visitors come to the island, from 100 to 150 people per day, starting from the second half of July until now. Generally, in nine months of 2020, there have been more than 2,800 visitors going to the island, 900 people higher than the same period last year. Thereby, it easily realized that Hon Cau owns a very strong attraction at this point.

On the cruise ship to the island with us, there is a group of more than 10 tourists from Hai Phong. This tour group had travelled through many journeys before visiting Binh Thuan. They went to Hanoi, took a plane to Cam Ranh airport (Khanh Hoa province), then got on the bus to Lien Huong harbor and then moved to the island. They showed their very experinced as some of them had been to Hon Cau before. Apparently, all of them were eager to explore the sea and islands in the context of a pandemic that can come back at any time. Hon Cau is clearly visible in the front. After only 20-25 minutes, the ship brought us to the island. The immediate sight was a rock park with rocks in a variety of sizes, from small, round, long, tall, and all kinds of rock; such all shapes of rocks and stones are seemingly a wave to welcoming visitors. And the model of sea turtles which is an outstanding activity specific to the conservation of the sea here over the past few years also welcomes guests with freshness and fun.

Hon Cau MPA

At present, on the island, there is a separate area for sea turtles. Accompanying them are a patrol and control team of Hon Cau Marine Preserved Area (MPA) Management Board and volunteers from all over the country to rescue turtles to the breeding ground. Their jobs are to relocate the turtle eggs to the safe hatchery and release them to the sea when the baby turtles hatched. And yet, this activity also cooperates with the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), and most of all, there is support from households who have been conscious not to fish, keep and trade sea turtles. That is one of the results that over the past, the Hon Cau MPA Management Board has organized propaganda sessions, mostly the officials and people in the concerned communes around the sanctioning regulations, violating regulations in the MPA, as well as the content on the ecotourism project and the harm of waste, especially plastic waste on the ocean. At the same time, visitors coming to the island are reminded of environmental protection.

As a result, Hon Cau is green, clean, and beautiful although the tourist cruises to the island have been operated since 2013. In every April of the lunar calendar, the Fisherman Festival takes place on the island attracting thousands of people to come. The 140-hectare island is located in an area of ​​about 12,500 hectares of Hon Cau MPA. Following the main route and the path on the island, you can see that there is no rubbish at all, even though the island is full of native short trees that are often entangled with garbage, but it completely no trash left. In addition, on the island, it is sunny for almost 8 hours a day, this is a kind of discovery tour, so visitors will drink water continuously, but on the way, there is no plastic bottle of water. On the shore like that, the sea is definitely biodiversity with more than 200 species of coral creating reefs, more than 300 species of fish, and etc as assessed by Nha Trang Institute of Oceanography in 2009, at the time that Hon Cau Marine Reserve prepared to be established. All is the reason, in December 2019, the Provincial People's Committee approved "The project of sustainable ecotourism development with community participation in Hon Cau Marine Reserve, Binh Thuan province".

Prospect factor

According to the above project, at Hon Cau, tourism products will be formed focusing on exploring the natural landscape and wild beauty of the island; explore the ocean on a glass-bottomed boat or snorkel at coral reefs, marine life, and colorful fish schools; learn about sea turtles, sea turtle conservation activities including egg-laying, incubation, and release of baby turtles to the sea. However, at the same time, control the number of visitors on the island not to have more than 200 visitors per day on weekdays and no more than 250 visitors per day on holidays and Tet. Thereby, it is clear that the goal is to develop tourism on the island with the participation of the community, to create livelihoods for the people, but the main task is to preserve the sea, protect and develop aquatic resources. From there, create other values. Hon Cau will create more unique destinations for tourists in the chain of attractive the province’s destinations.

Hon Cau MPA is currently taking steps to implement the tourism project, especially technical infrastructure and human resources. Even the owner of a passenger transport vehicle must equip for staff about marine conservation knowledge and all relevant skills. And what has been built for a long time in Hon Cau is a promising premise in the near future, when tourism on the island is well developed under the scheme, the island is a promising factor for the ASEAN Sustainable Tourism award. This is not too far-fetched, because in 2018, Vietnam has the Thai Hai (Thai Nguyen) eco-tourism stilt village conservation area awarded above and the set standards also revolve around a clean environment, preserving the literature and localization, special cuisine, hospitable people. Moreover, a few years ago, in Binh Thuan, there was Seahorse Resort & Spa (Ham Tien - Phan Thiet City) awarded the ASEAN Green Hotel 2012. This is one of 10 hotels in Vietnam honored to receive the award at that time, on the number of 125,000 hotels and resorts across the country. Not only that, Binh Thuan is ranked as the place with the most coastal hotels and resorts. The competition between them in serving guests also accidentally won many domestic awards and trophies on related content. All are towards the ultimate goal of green tourism, associated with the sea and islands to bring health and longevity to visitors.

Binh Thuan tourism with outstanding coast length, island areas containing rich biodiversity, unique indigenous culture, and tourism technical infrastructure formed in the past 25 years.  It is an advantage to develop a green tourism model for ASEAN tourism. But at the same time, climate change is fierce and tourism is suffering from immediate obstacles. There's a question: Will green tourism expand further?

Translated by Uyen Linh (Source : Binh Thuan Newspaper)