Effective Partnership for Tourism Development

According to official statistic of Quang Ninh’s Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism, in the first 6 months of 2016, Ha Long Bay welcomed more than 5.4 million visitors, an increase of 4 percent year on year, of which international tourists accounted for nearly 2 million, up 52 percent year on year. This is a positive result, reflecting the province's efforts in reforming management system and tightening environmental protection.

 

At the third senior meeting of Ha Long – Cat Ba Alliance held on July 6 in Ha Long city, Mr Ho Quang Huy, Vice Chairman of Ha Long City People’s Committee, said that at the end of 2015, Quang Ninh province had decided to transfer the functions of state management for Ha Long Bay from the Ha Long Bay Management Board to Ha Long City People's Committee. The transition was to strengthen state management and enhance the effectiveness of the preservation and promotion of the bay’s values. Shortly after taking over the responsibility, the city had been focusing on the synchronized deployment of planning and solutions for environmental protection at the bay.

 

As for Cat Ba World Biosphere Reserve, Mr Nguyen Xuan Binh - Vice Chairman of the People's Committee of Hai Phong city, said that the city was attracting various projects including two key national projects which were the Hai Phong international gateway port and the Tan Vu - Lach Huyen motorways under urgent construction by Japanese contractors and were expected to be completed in 2017.

 

In 2016, Cat Ba is expected to welcome 1.6 million visitors and collect tourism revenues of VND1 trillion.

 

According to Mr Ho Quang Huy, Ha Long Bay was large water where boats operated actively; moreover it was adjacent to Cat Ba’s water – an area occupied by a large amount of floating restaurants which uses a lot of buoys that caused environmental impacts. Waste management in the bay therefore faced serious difficulties.

 

Since sharing a coastal ecosystem and maintaining a close interaction with each other, activities of tourist exploitation and aquaculture in Cat Ba could impact directly Ha Long Bay and vice versa. Therefore, coordination in management and environmental protection between the two localities were essential, stressed Mr Huy.

 

Mr Nguyen Van Tuan, Deputy Director of the Management Board of Cat Ba Island, pointed out the outstanding obstacle in environmental protection was that Cat Ba had yet to attract investors in the field of waste processing, such as expanding and building new collection and treatment sites of sewage and household waste, especially wastewater from active ships. The population of the island as well as its number of boats were increasing each year, without additional construction direction, overcrowding in treatment sites would be unavoidable.

 

Mr Nguyen Xuan Binh said that all involved parties should join hands to seek solutions for a tourism sustainable development, to find new directions for fish cage farming, as well as solutions to improve the environment of those heritage areas.

 

One of the most important cooperation projects between Hai Phong and Quang Ninh that needs mentioning is the Ha Long - Cat Ba Alliance Initiative. According to Mr Jake Brunner, Acting Chief Representative of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) in Vietnam, the Initiative was launched in 2014 to develop cooperation mechanisms among the state, enterprises and local communities, thereby promoting environmental conservation and protection in both Ha Long Bay and Cat Ba Island. The project is focusing on implementing the sustainable tourism certification program for yacht businesses and providing technical support for UNESCO in the management of Ha Long Bay as well as the proposal of expanding the bay, including Cat Ba Island.

 

Mr Ho Quang Huy also informed that Ha Long city was working with the Centre for Marinelife Conservation and Community Development (MCD) to implement items in the component two of the Ha Long - Cat Ba Partnership Initiative, which was designing a pilot plan for environment friendly aquaculture model combined with responsible tourism in Ha Long Bay; Strengthening the propaganda of inter-sector cooperation and involvement of relevant parties.