Tourism authorities of six north-central provinces, along with the Vietnam National Administration of Tourism, organized a conference with 70 southern tour operators to find ways to bring tourists back after mass fish deaths along the central coast more than seven months ago had driven many tourists away.

Tourism authorities of Nghe An, Thanh Hoa, Ha Tinh, Quang Binh, Quang Tri and Thua Thien-Hue provinces took turns to introduce their tourism potentials and new products last Friday.

They introduced various destinations and products such as Hai Thuong Lan Ong Le Huu Trac relic group in Ha Tinh, caves in the Phong Nha-Ke Bang National Park of Quang Binh Province, battlefield tours to Con Co Island of Quang Tri Province, or night tours to the former imperial capital of Hue.

They hoped meetings with travel firms and media organizations in the south would help advertise their destinations and tourism products, as well as bring back a significant number of tourists.

Ta Quang Ha, deputy director of Quang Binh’s Department of Tourism, said they had met some international media organizations like TripAdvisor, a world-renowned travel website, as well as domestic ones to discuss organizing tourism promotion events.

He added his province attracted 3.2 million tourists last year. But tourism revenues have fallen by VND1,700 billion so far this year after April’s serious environmental incident.

Other provinces are in the same boat. For example, the number of tourists to Ha Tinh Province has fallen by 60-70%, leaving many tourism workers jobless.

These authorities placed high expectations in these meetings. However, tourism firms in HCMC have found it difficult to take tourists back to the region in the short term. The greatest obstacles are that many tourists are still concerned about the pollution, and that the majority of provinces’ promotion programs are not diverse, attractive and comprehensive enough.

Nguyen Van My, chairman of Lua Viet Tours Co Ltd., told the Daily that it is hard to persuade tourists back to the region, as they think some marine areas are still unsafe.

“Many promotion events are not at all effective. Thus local authorities need to develop new and unique programs with competitive prices. I have not seen such programs since the incident happened,” he said.

The administration will cooperate with these provinces to organize tourism promotions for the region in Thailand, and launch familiarization trips to survey tourism products for some media organizations from Hanoi and HCMC.

SGT