Ha Giang provincial authorities have announced a plan to collect fees from visitors to the UNESCO-recognized Karst Plateau Geopark - VND30,000 per ticket for adults per night and VND15,000 per ticket for children.

Many people are opposed to the plan, saying that Dong Van Geopark is a natural heritage, so it is a national asset and must be accessible to all Vietnamese.

Some netizens say on social networks that the admission fee will keep travelers away. In the current difficult conditions, people will choose destinations that don’t cost them much money. 

“Any move at this moment that makes people spend more money on their trips would make them unhappy. This will affect efforts to recover the tourism industry after the pandemic,” a netizen commented.

However, the provincial authorities, insisting on the plan, said that they calculated carefully before making the decision. 

A report showed that about 65 percent of travelers to the province would visit the geopark. The number of guests and tourism revenue in the geopark area in 2010-2020 increased by 15-20 percent per annum, higher than the province’s average level (10 percent). It was estimated that about 2.3 million people visited the geopark in 2022.

According to Hoang Xuan Don, head of the geopark’s management board, there are 40 points in the geopark area which could be points for admission ticket collection, but to date, Ha Giang has collected fees at three points, including Lung Khuy Cave, Vuong’s Palace (VND30,000 for adults, VND10,000 for children) and Lung Cu Flag Tower (VND40,000, VND15,000).

In 2017-2021, the total collected fee was VND29 billion, and the local authorities retained VND17.2 billion after paying into the local budget.

UNESCO would assess the situation of the geopark every four years and give recommendations for the geopark to implement in the following four years. At least 90 percent of recommendations must be implemented, or the relic would be given a yellow card (with two more years to implement), or red card (have the titles stripped).

UNESCO's recommendations concern many fields such as conservation, planning, community education, community development, minority culture protection, biodiversity, and sustainable tourism development. Each plan costs hundreds of billions of dong a year.

“The plans cost a lot of money, but they bring benefits to locals. The recommendations are not only for tourism development,” Don said.

Meanwhile, the geopark is located in a high land area, so carrying out the activities of upgrading and expanding the electricity and telecommunications networks is difficult work for Ha Giang, a poor province. The revenue from tourism is not high.

The provincial authorities anticipate that with the current development of the geopark, and if Ha Giang continues to look forward to aid from the state budget, it will seriously lack money to satisfy requirements for development.

According to Don, in 2011, GGN’s experts mentioned fee collection and financial self-determination for the geopark board of management. In 2018, this became a recommendation that needed to be done.

A survey of tourists found that over 50 percent of tourists would agree to pay an admission fee. As for foreign tourists, the figure is 90 percent.

Answering VietNamNet, Guy Martini, UNESCO Senior Consultant, Chairperson of the UNESCO Global Geoparks Council, said he supports a plan to collect a fee from visitors to Dong Van Geopark. Fee collection is applied in many European countries and around the world. It aims to bring additional revenue to localities and territories.

He stressed that for foreign travelers, VND30,000-40,000 for one night of staying there is absolutely feasible if they are sure that the money is used to conserve and better manage the geopark.

Dr Pham Hong Long, Dean of the Faculty of Tourism of the Hanoi University of Social Sciences and Humanity, said it is reasonable and feasible to collect excursion fees. When tourists can experience active values in the environment, natural resources and services of a heritage destination site, they will cause negative effects (waste water, waste, natural resource degradation, effects to infrastructure…etc) and they have the responsibility to settle the consequences.

Linh Trang