Link to attract border trade customers

Cambodia is a big potential market

Recently, a working delegation from the Department of Industry and Trade, the People's Committee of Tan Bien District, Tay Ninh Province, in coordination with functional agencies of Tboung Khmum Province (Cambodia), organized a survey of the model border market of the two countries (Da Market, Tboung Khmum Province) to discuss solutions to promote business and tourism.

During the survey, representatives of the Tay Ninh Province Young Entrepreneurs Association proposed to organize a trade fair during the Chol Chnam Thmay festival of the neighboring country, and to research and organize stops and shopping tours in the tourism chain to Tay Ninh and Tboung Khmum. In particular, with the development of Tay Ninh tourism, the neighboring side also proposed to establish a tourism route from H.Memot (Thbong Khmum) to Ba Den Mountain and vice versa.

Du lịch cửa khẩu đường bộ chưa được quan tâm: Liên kết để hút khách biên mậu - Ảnh 1. — Vietnam has great potential for developing border tourism.

Previously, right after Vietnam fully opened its tourism market, the Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism of Tay Ninh also organized a program to promote and expand the Tay Ninh tourism market with provinces and cities with developed tourism in the kingdom of pagodas, such as Phnom Penh and Siem Reap.

Responding to Thanh Nien, a representative of the Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism of Tay Ninh said that as a province bordering Cambodia, with two international border gates and more than a dozen secondary border gates, Tay Ninh has many advantages to attract tourists from Cambodia. Traveling is convenient and easy, businesses have a lot of "land" to build tour programs with suitable duration.

In addition to the geographical advantages, the province also has unique products that are popular with Cambodian tourists such as exploring the Southern National Liberation Front Base, the Southern Central Bureau and many other cultural relics such as: Cao Dai Holy See, Chop Mat Tower, Ba Den Mountain, Dau Tieng Lake, Lo Go - Xa Mat National Park, which is typical of seasonal wetlands... Recently, the province has also attracted a number of large investors to build new, high-class artificial tourism products. These are great potentials for Tay Ninh to develop most types of tourism from traditional culture, ecology, resort, spiritual culture, scientific research.

If we can implement the idea of a trans-Indochina visa, trans-Indochina tourism, opening visas, opening borders with Laos, Cambodia, and Thailand, we will not only attract customers from the Lao, Cambodian, and Thai markets but also be able to exploit more international tourist flows that they bring.

Dr. Luong Hoai Nam

"The distance from Tay Ninh to the country's leading tourist center, Ho Chi Minh City, is 100 km. This distance is a disadvantage that significantly affects the attraction of tourists to Tay Ninh. The province's tourism has to compete strongly with the attraction from localities in the region. Therefore, in recent times, in addition to the domestic tourist market, the province has focused on developing international visitors, especially visitors from Cambodia. With a system of attractive new products, and the planning of the Ho Chi Minh City - Moc Bai expressway being promoted, we expect Tay Ninh to not only be a breakthrough destination in the near future but also a potential transit point connecting visitors from Cambodia to the provinces in the Southeast region as well as across the country," said a representative of the Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism of Tay Ninh province.

Similar to Tay Ninh, Quang Ninh province has recently been fully exploiting the 132 km border with Guangxi province (China), with 3 border gates Mong Cai, Hoanh Mo, Bac Phong Sinh to promote attracting Chinese tourists by road. Director of Quang Ninh province's Department of Tourism Pham Ngoc Thuy assessed that in recent years, Quang Ninh province ( Vietnam ) and Guangxi province (China) have developed comprehensive cooperation and exchange in many aspects, including tourism. This is the largest international tourist market of the country and Quang Ninh.

Exploiting the potential of border tourism

After many years of pursuing the development of road tourism, Mr. Ly Viet Cuong, General Director of Nam Phuong Tourism Company, said that Cambodian, Laotian, and northern Thai tourists had previously flocked to Vietnam . However, the demand at that time was mainly for medical examination and treatment and the spending level was very low, so this was not an attractive market for the tourism industry to "take care of".

Even in the post-pandemic period, if the tourism industry wants to recover quickly, it will only focus on the aviation market. Road tourism products such as those from Tay Ninh taking Cambodian tourists to Ho Chi Minh City, Da Lat or welcoming Cambodian tourists through the Da Nang border gate, if any, will only be of the nature of "reusing old things"; still usable, but not attractive.

Mr. Ly Viet Cuong said that the tourism needs of Cambodian and Lao people have also changed a lot. They want to visit more, and their spending has also improved a lot. The tourism industry also needs to change its approach to attract these markets. "Cambodian tourists like to go to Da Lat because of the mountains, like to go to Ho Chi Minh City for medical treatment, and go through Moc Bai border gate to Tay Ninh - an emerging spiritual tourism destination. Why don't we join together to form a systematic tourism product, so that visitors can come in a flow, have a route and stay for a long time?", Mr. Cuong suggested.

Sharing the view that Vietnamese tourism has recently paid little attention to the road tourist market, Dr. Luong Hoai Nam, a member of the Tourism Advisory Board (TAB), admitted that even TAB has little data or research on this group of tourists. The main reason is that there is no open border policy between countries, so the potential of border tourists has not been fully exploited.

"In fact, it's not that we haven't seen the potential. In the past, Vietnam has mentioned the idea of "one visa - many destinations" in the CLMV sub-region (Cambodia - Laos - Myanmar - Vietnam ) many times, but then it was raised in a "beat the drum and leave the drumsticks alone" manner, calling for it and then leaving it there without being implemented. If the border gates are opened, people and tourists traveling between countries do not need visas, our vehicles can go to their side, their vehicles can go to our side conveniently, then road tourism will develop strongly, especially for individual and family tourists", Dr. Luong Hoai Nam emphasized.

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