On the 27 anniversary of Binh Thuan Tourism Day (October 24th, 1995-2022): Binh Thuan to build resilience and boost its tourism recovery and development

However, thanks to flexible and effective solutions, the whole sector has gradually overcome certain difficulties and negative impacts of the so-called Covid-19 disease. As of now, it can be seen that Binh Thuan has transformed its face and strongly confirmed its position on Vietnam’s tourist map.

Tourism overcomes pandemic

During the period the sudden outbreak of the Covid-19 epidemic, it can be said that tourism is one of the economic sectors that suffer the heaviest consequences and falls into an unforeseen difficult situation. Especially at the peak time of the past year, many provinces and cities across the country had to implement social distancing, thereby tourism activities were almost "frozen" because most accommodation establishments and travel agencies were temporarily suspended. Particularly in Phan Thiet City- the tourist center of the province also had a period of more than 1 month (from the beginning of August to the beginning of September 2021) imposing strict regulation on social distancing when the epidemic was complicated. Consequently, during the month, statistics showed that the number of visitors and revenue from tourism activities in Binh Thuan decreased significantly, down 93.37% and 94.09% respectively over the same period last year.

The above situation urged the locality and the tourism sector to promptly deploy numerous measures to revive tourism activities, in association with ensuring disease prevention. Many incentives and supporting policies for the travel workforce have been implemented as a way to share difficulties with the industry. Besides, the province also put priority on building and reinforcing the image of a “Safe-friendly-quality” destination for the sake of visitors to Binh Thuan. Thanks to those efforts, Binh Thuan tourism has bravely re-opened door to welcome and serve domestic guests on October 24th, 2021. Since March 2022, the entire industry’s activities have returned to normal.

With efforts to overcome difficulties and in the condition that the Covid-19 epidemic situation is basically under control, from the beginning of 2022 until now, the local tourism industry has also recorded many signs of prosperity. Especially during New Year and Tet holidays, tourism activities saw very exciting with a large number of visitors. In particular, in the last Lunar New Year, there were about 75,000 tourist arrivals to the locality. Also, the Hung King's death anniversary attracted 35,000 visitors. Remarkably, Binh Thuan received about 80,000 visitors on the April 30 and May 1 holidays, while the National Day (September 2) welcomed a number of visitors far exceeding the estimated number of 45,000 visitors.

Moving up

Celebrating its 27th birthday anniversary (October 24, 1995 - October 24, 2022), Binh Thuan tourism is facing new opportunities as it owns many potentials and advantages, aiming to assert a more classy brand. Under the master plan for the development of Mui Ne National Tourist Area, "Vietnam’s resort capital" and surrounding areas have been selected to become a priority area for tourism development in Vietnam. Thereby, it can create an investment attraction as well as an important motivation for local tourism to rise to a new level, meeting the requirements of making Mui Ne National Tourist Area become one of the leading destinations in Asia - Pacific.

As for the province's orientation (Resolution 06 of the Provincial Party Committee on tourism development to 2025, orientation to 2030), Binh Thuan will turn tourism into a spearhead economic sector and an economic pillar in the locality’s direction. Therefore, in the coming time, the industry will continue to focus on effectively exploiting strong products such as high-class beach resorts, recreational sports at sea - on sand dunes, golf, healthcare tourism, and MICE tourism. In addition, it will also develop product lines on green tourism, cultural tourism associated with festivals, sightseeing and learning about community life, traditional craft villages, agricultural tourism, forest ecology - sea - sand dunes, etc.

In the short term of 2022, the local tourism industry strives to fulfill two basic targets of welcoming 4,450,000 visitors and reaching total revenue of VND 10,600 billion. Through the first three quarters of this year, the Binh Thuan Tourism Development Steering Committee assessed that the tourism industry has returned to growth and promoted the growth of other economic sectors in the locality. This is also reflected in the results of 9 months of 2022: The province welcomed about 3,971,560 visitors, reaching 89.25% of the whole year plan (up 2.27 times over the same period), in which international visitors accounted for nearly 54,330 turns, reaching 25.87% of the plan (up 2.57 times over the same period last year). As for revenue from tourism activities, it is estimated to achieve more than 9,200 billion VND in the same period, reaching 86.8% of the year plan (up 2.3 times over the same period last year). If the industry continues to be active in the coming time, it is expected that the whole industry will exceed the set targets by the end of 2022.

Entering the new year, Binh Thuan is hosting the 2023 National Tourism Year, which is considered a typical cultural - economic - social event on national and international scales. It is also an opportunity to promote the tourist attraction of Binh Thuan, actively contributing to restoring tourism activities in the Post-Covid-19 period as well as creating a breakthrough for the province’s "smokeless industry" in the following years.