Vietnam province draws investors

Vietnam’s Binh Dinh province says it will invest in tourism promotions in Ho Chi Minh City to attract more tourists and engage with potential investors to build more tourist-related facilities.

But travel firms in Ho Chi Minh City claim the province needs show investors it can first improve transportation facilities.

The mountainous coastal province is located 225 km south of Danang and 450 km north of Ho Chi Minh province. While tagged a gateway to the central region, the province lags behind Danang and other central region provinces in economic development, but it hopes to catch up by diversifying into tourism.

It has great scenic value mainly vistas of  green forested mountains that span the province almost to its shoreline.  But according to local travel operators, there is a lack of  quality transportation to get there and very little progress had been made in the last 10 years in building infrastructure except for a couple of new hotels.

Binh Dinh province is on the main rail route that transverses the country north-to- south and has an airport served by Vietnam Airlines and Mekong Airlines.

Phu Cat Airport, is the closest just 26 km from Binh Dinh city, while the nearest main line station is 40 km away at Quy Nhon.

Most visitors to the province stay just one night on the way to Danang and Hue, the most popular tourists attractions in the central region.

According to the latest statistics, Binh Dinh province received 1 million tourists last year, but only 75,000 were foreigners and most of them travelled from HCMC.

Binh Dinh province has 54 hotels or guest houses.

The province gained headlines in newspapers when last month a Vietnamese American joint venture resort company confirmed it was ready to build an integrated golf resort worth US$250 million which will be called Vinh Hoi Bay Golf Resort.

Source - ttrweekly