Poor infrastructure discourages Can Tho tourism development

According to the municipal Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism, the city currently has around 190 hotels offering 4,799 rooms. Of the total, 59 are from one to four-star hotels.

The city now has 11 tourism sites and entertainment places with six places providing accommodation services such as My Khanh tourism site in Phong Dien District.

Travel firms in the city provided accommodation services for 1,180 tourists last year, up 13pct from a year earlier.

International travel firms provided inbound tours for 14,000 foreign tourists and outbound tours for 11,000 people in 2012.

The city’s tourism industry had an estimated revenues of VND850 billion ($40.7 million) last year, up 12pct from the previous year.

Dang Tan Hung, the department’s Deputy Director, however, said most of tourism sites in the city are small-sized and operating independently without any proper cooperation.

“The city still lack modern large-scale entertainment places as well as typical specialties. Tourism promotion is still inefficient as well,” Hung emphasised.

Le Hung Dung, Vice Chairman of the municipal People’s Committee said the number of welcomed tourists to the city and its tourism revenues in 2012 were still modest.

More efforts should be made to work out efficient measures to boost tourism development in the time to come, he urged.

The city targets to welcome 1.25 million tourists this year, including over 210,000 foreign tourists. The industry’s revenues are expected to reach VND970 billion ($46.5 million) during the year.

Dang Tan Hung, Deputy Director of the municipal Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism said the agency will request the city’s culture centre and Tay Do theatre to cooperate with travel firms and hotels to organise suitable art performances for tourists in the time to come.

They will hold festivals to honour local specialities and introduce typical products as souvenirs.

The department will conduct studies of tourism sites in order to select those with the most potential for further development.

They will consider a plan to turn Cai Rang floating market into a tourism destination, he noted.

The department has proposed the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism to draft policies to encourage investment in tourism nationwide and organise tourism promotion programmes at local and national levels, he added.