What is the driving force for Tay Ninh's economic breakthrough?

With impressive growth, the "roof of the Southeast" aims to become the international trade gateway of the entire Southern Key Economic Zone by 2050, with tourism being a key economic sector. The "rise" of Tay Ninh shows that all localities have room to make economic breakthroughs.

Ba Den Mountain attracts many tourists to Tay Ninh

Tourism lights up the economic picture

In the overall picture of Tay Ninh's economic growth, tourism is considered an important bright spot. In 2022, the province's tourism industry strives to reach about 3.1 million visitors, but the 12-month total has excellently reached 4.5 million, an increase of 200% over the previous year, bringing the provincial budget 1,400 billion VND, an increase of 130%. This result makes Tay Ninh one of the southern provinces with the strongest tourism growth rate after the Covid-19 pandemic. In the first 6 months of this year, while the industrial - construction sector had a slow growth rate, the service - trade sector continued to record very good growth, contributing to 32.07% of the province's GRDP. Notably, revenue from tourism activities reached nearly 1,450 billion VND, an increase of 71% over the same period.

According to the People's Committee of Tay Ninh province, in recent times, the tourism industry has made many important contributions to the socio-economic development of the province. The development of the tourism industry has promoted the economic structure to shift in a positive direction, helping to increase budget revenue, create jobs for workers, improve the appearance of rural areas, and develop urban areas. In particular, the success in attracting a number of strategic investors such as Sun Group, Vingroup... to build new, high-class artificial tourism products has created a major improvement in products and services in both quantity and quality. Since then, the number of visitors to tourist areas and destinations has increased and the quality of visitors has also increased. Tay Ninh has full potential to develop most types of traditional cultural, ecological, resort, spiritual culture, and scientific research tourism.

Tay Ninh tourism is developing strongly.

Mr. Nguyen Thanh Ngoc, Chairman of Tay Ninh Provincial People's Committee, said that the Provincial People's Committee has developed a Tourism Development Plan until 2025 and orientation to 2030, emphasizing the requirement to effectively exploit existing potential and advantages, focusing on developing tourism products, building a unique tourism brand, and turning Ba Den Mountain National Tourist Area into a classy tourist area of ​​the region and the whole country.

Mr. Nguyen Thanh Ngoc emphasized that the province has determined that it is time to stop going at the normal pace and instead make changes with a breakthrough mindset, taking advantage of local advantages to transform them into growth and development drivers for the locality as well as the whole region. Industry and tourism services are identified as the main driving force for growth associated with the development of new spaces, making Tay Ninh one of the centers for industrial development and tourism services in the region and the whole country.

"By 2030, Tay Ninh must become a rich, civilized province and a place with the best living environment in the region. Improving the value chain, increasing the proportion of tourism in GRDP, creating a driving force to promote the province's socio-economic development are some of the key tasks to strive for tourism to become the local spearhead economic sector by 2030. By 2050, Tay Ninh will become a province with a developed economy based on clean industry and high-tech agriculture, with developed trade and tourism and be the international trade gateway of the Southern Key Economic Zone", the leaders of Tay Ninh province set the goal.

Attraction from tourism "blockbusters"

In fact, since reopening after Covid-19, Tay Ninh has emerged as one of the hottest destinations, always recording a record number of visitors during peak holidays and Tet. In 2022, Tay Ninh welcomed 5 million visitors, becoming one of the top tourist attractions in the country. Travel website Vietnam Nomad also named Tay Ninh in the list of "10 beautiful hidden gems" of Vietnamese tourism, a must-visit destination in 2023.

Traveling about 1,800 km on a nearly 6-hour journey from Van Don to Ho Chi Minh City and then by car to Tay Ninh, Ms. Pham Anh Hoa's family (Quang Ninh) could not hide their emotions when they arrived at Ba Den Mountain on the occasion of the Bodhisattva Avalokitesvara's birthday. Ms. Hoa said: "Earlier this year, I missed my appointment to worship Ba, so I decided to arrange my work to go to Ba Den Mountain on the occasion of the Bodhisattva Avalokitesvara's birthday. I was really surprised to witness the solemn ceremony at Ba Temple and join the crowd to listen to Dharma talks and release flower lanterns on the mountain top in the magical light at night. It felt like I was lost in the land of Buddha, extremely peaceful and relaxing".

It is not until now that Ba Den Mountain has become the most famous destination in Tay Ninh. For many decades, this mountain, known as the most sacred in the South, has always been at the top of the list of must-see destinations for "spiritual tourism" followers. However, at that time, it was not easy to visit this place. To worship Ba or conquer the top of the mountain, visitors had to walk along trails or climb 1,000 steps from the foot of the mountain, taking 2-4 hours to reach the top. Along with that, besides worshiping Ba Den Mountain, there are almost no attractive activities to attract visitors, so anyone who goes must plan a schedule to carefully time their trip to go/return within the day.

In 1998, a cable car line was built to make it easier for tourists to reach Ba Temple, but it did not meet the demand. The road to the "roof of the South" with more than 600 m of climbing along the rugged mountain road from Ba Temple is still a huge challenge. In January 2020, the modern cable car line - the first item of the Sun World Ba Den Mountain tourist area invested by Sun Group on the top of Ba Den Mountain - came into operation, changing the tourist experience in Tay Ninh; shortening the travel time to the "roof of the South" and Ba Temple to only minutes instead of days. Despite the disadvantage of being formed right at the time of the epidemic, the tourist area accidentally became a "powerful weapon" for Tay Ninh when it reopened after the epidemic.

A synchronously invested complex with many unique spiritual experiences, large-scale spiritual works on the mountain top with many modern technologies, a lighting system of 3,500 LED lights across the mountain top... immediately lit up Tay Ninh tourism after long nights of Covid-19. In January 2023 alone, Ba Den Mountain welcomed nearly 2 million visitors. In particular, Ba Den Mountain is also a rare place in Vietnam to preserve the relics of Buddha Shakyamuni, becoming the leading spiritual destination in the South. It is predicted that by 2025, this tourist area will attract about 5 million visitors and reach 8 million by 2035.

Dr. Luong Hoai Nam, a member of the Vietnam Tourism Advisory Board (TAB), called this a clear demonstration of the power of tourism "blockbusters" from the experience park segment, which has seen a breakthrough development in the tourism industry in recent times. The Sun World Ba Den Mountain complex has brought about a "transformation" for the tourism industry in Tay Ninh province, similar to the way Ba Na Hills positioned the tourism class of Da Nang or Sun World Fansipan Legend helped to create a breakthrough in Sa Pa tourism (Lao Cai)...

Large-scale, high-class projects with systematic investment such as Sun World Ba Den Mountain will be the highlight that creates "terrible" attraction, not only attracting domestic tourists but also contributing to effectively exploiting the international market. Diverse products will also attract tourists to stay longer, spend more, and the tourism industry will exploit this market more effectively.

Dr. Luong Hoai Nam , member of Vietnam Tourism Advisory Board

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