Long An Strengthening Tourism Development Linkage

In Vietnam Tourism Development Planning, Long An province holds an important position as an ecological tourism destination in the southern region. Not only being naturally endowed with Vam Co Tay and Vam Co Dong Rivers supplying fertile soil for its fruit orchards, Long An also has lush rice fields and diverse plant and animal ecosystems, creating favourable conditions for eco-tourism development. Well-known places of interest in the province include Phuoc Loc Tho tourist site (Duc Hoa district), Dong Thap Muoi eco-tourism zone (Tan An City) and Thanh Tam bonsai garden.

 

Long An also attracts tourists for its rich humanity values of Oc Eo culture, a culture formed and developed in the Mekong Delta from the first century to the sixth century AD. Nearly 20 prehistoric relics and 100 Oc Eo cultural relics have been discovered. The province also has many historical sites like Binh Ta and An Son ancient architectural relics (Duc Hoa district), Hundred-pillar Pagoda and Go O Chua (Vinh Hung district), Vam Nhut Tao historical relic.

 

In addition, Long An has many resources like medicinal resource research, conservation and development centre in Dong Thap Muoi, Lang Sen wetland reserve zone and Tan Lap mangrove forest with rich flora and fauna systems. These are fascinating destinations for combined tourism and research. Long An also has a number of traditional industry villages such as mat weaving village, Go Den wine brewing village, Binh An drum-making village and Can Duoc boat building village - all are captivating destinations for domestic and foreign tourists.

 

At present, Long An now has strengths for developing various forms of tourism like water-world discovery and sightseeing, mangrove forest discovery, river and garden discovery, and short-time or weekend relaxation tourism. Diversifying tourism products is an important factor to ensure sustainable tourism development. Besides, the regional linkage is also a particularly important factor for the Long An tourism sector to create rich tourism products. The province signed a tourism development cooperation agreement with Ho Chi Minh City for the 2006-2010 period. After five years of implementation, the two tourism sectors exchanged and learned from their experience, cooperated for mutual development, and jointly attracted investors to develop cultural and tourism products.

 

Following this success, Long An province and Ho Chi Minh City signed another cooperation programme for the 2011-2016 period. This continued tourism development cooperation aims to tap the tourism advantages of each locality and of the Mekong Delta region, exploit resources in a rational way, meet practical local needs, and create new momentum for sustainable tourism development of the region. Besides, the province also attracts all available social resources in the region and beyond and creates complete inter-regional tourism products and tours to introduce to domestic and international tourists.

 

According to the agreement, Ho Chi Minh City and Long An province will boost cooperation in such aspects as exchange of information about tourism development, investment attraction and business cooperation, tourism promotion and advertisement, and tourism product development.

 

Besides, the two localities regularly exchange experiences with Tien Giang province, Dong Thap province, Can Tho City and other localities to tap local tourism potential, create the foundation for the future cooperation in management experience, planning, investment attraction, tourism promotion, tourism product development and personnel training. The province’s tourism sector also regularly provides information about tourist attractions and tour programmes for businesses, and coordinates with other localities like Ho Chi Minh City and surrounding provinces to build inter-locality tourism products and tours. Besides, Long An also coordinates with foreign countries like Cambodia to diversify tourism products.

 

Defining eco-tourism as a key impetus for the takeoff of the tourism industry, Long An has focused on investing and improving infrastructure systems, restoring historical and cultural relics, and strengthening tourism cooperation to develop the industry.