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Participants joining an event held in Binh Dinh visit Thap Doi (Twin Towers). Photo K.T |
Recently, Binh Dinh has successfully hosted many events of national magnitude. However, it’s a pity that Binh Dinh couldn’t take advantage of these opportunities to promote tourism.
Such big events as sporting festival, national internal medicine workshop, or national vocational trainer festival took place in the central province of Binh Dinh, proving its role and development in the central region.
However, Binh Dinh’s tourism didn’t benefit from these occasions because there was no link established between the events and the province’s strategy for tourism development.
Reasons…
When organising schedules for the events, organisation boards only focused on the content of the events. Participants, therefore, had no free time to visit their favorite destinations in the host province.
In most events, participants had to join the event at once without having a free day to visit anywhere. They also left Binh Dinh as soon as the events ended owing to the shortage of time.
The organisation boards certainly had no responsibility for arranging participants to visit tourism destinations in Binh Dinh, but if the province had taken full advantage of the events, its tourism would have benefited from the opportunities.
Many participants regreted that they couldn’t visit relics and landscapes in Binh Dinh when attending the events here for they had no time. This is partly because tour operators and organisation boards of the events hadn’t closely linked to each other.
….And solutions
Many who attended events wanted to visit destinations in host provinces or cities. Those who came to Binh Dinh also wanted to enjoy its tourism sites because Binh Dinh is a new destination for many tourists.
It’s important, thus, that those who come to attend events in Binh Dinh should be offered one or two free days to explore the province. This will surely bring many benefits to the province’s economy, particularly tourism and its services.
Participants could be invited one day earlier and the closing ceremony should be held one day after the content of an event finishes.
Alongside this, tour operators need to be offered the information about events so that they could prepare for their programs and coordinate with the organisation board.
Many countries, including Thailand and Singapore, always focus on the link between events and tourism development. In Vietnam, some tourism centers, such as Hue, Nha Trang, Quang Nam, and Ha Long have made every effort to host events which could bring many benefits to their economies, particularly tourism sector.
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