Advantages and Disadvantages in the Development of Thai Binh Tourism

meet the needs of tourists, but in Vu Thu there are almost no restaurants and tourists often have to go to the city center)

Souvenir stalls and shops focus on imported goods from various places, mainly Chinese goods. Very few or no traditional handicrafts are sold due to the lack of tourism products in Thai Binh. A survey at 3 major tourist destinations in Thai Binh showed that souvenir stalls mainly sell bracelets, key chains, photos of historical sites, etc., products that can be purchased at any tourist destination, not necessarily in Thai Binh.

Motels and hotels serving tourism have not yet met the needs of tourism development. According to statistics from the Department of Culture of Hung Ha district - where many architectural and artistic relics are concentrated, with the most development potential, there are currently about 14 motels and hotels in Hung Ha. Of which, the hotel has the largest number of rooms of 14 rooms, the smallest is 4 rooms. The area of ​​the rooms is from 10-20m2. At Keo Vu Thu pagoda, according to statistics, there are also about 13 motels and hotels with the largest number of rooms in a hotel being 36 rooms, the least being 5 rooms, the room area is also about 10-25m2. Thus, the accommodation system is not guaranteed, leading to the inhibition of tourism development in Thai Binh.

Because Thai Binh is still poor in tourism products, spending on other services in Thai Binh is still low. Take Keo Pagoda as a typical example, which annually welcomes 5,000 to 6,000 visitors, but mainly domestic visitors come in January and September. Tourists mainly come for spiritual purposes, worship Buddha, visit and learn about architecture, and visit during the day, and there are very few visitors staying overnight. According to statistics from the Keo Pagoda relic management board, the average spending of domestic visitors does not exceed 20,000 VND/visitor, of which donations account for about 70%, the rest is spent on souvenir shopping and eating. The very modest spending of tourists is also a negative situation for tourism development in Thai Binh.

The phenomenon of soliciting tourists to buy goods often occurs during the festival season. The products sold by vendors at the relic site are often products originating from China, poor quality goods but pushed up to quite high prices. This phenomenon occurs because Thai Binh souvenirs do not have their own unique features and do not have a brand, they have to be imported from different sources, causing boredom and mass production of souvenir products. Along with that, beggars still operate very freely and crowdedly at the relic sites that the management staff has not yet managed. Many beggars also chase tourists to beg for anything, causing discomfort to tourists.

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The image of vendors soliciting customers negatively affects the image of Thai Binh tourism, causing confusion and discomfort for tourists.

During my visit to the three typical architectural and artistic sites of Thai Binh, I witnessed with my own eyes the actions of the vendors soliciting tourists. As soon as tourists got off the bus, a group of people started offering parking services, drinks or incense for worship. This situation continued throughout the entire journey from the gate to the relic site and tourists were offered all kinds of services such as: buying flowers, buying specialties, buying souvenirs, even asking for fortune telling, spiritual things were also offered, causing discomfort to tourists.

Advantages and Disadvantages in the Development of Thai Binh Tourism

There are still many existing problems in the architectural and artistic relic site that affect the relic site and need to be remedied.

CHAPTER 2 SUMMARY

Chapter 2 is the current status of tourism development of Thai Binh architectural art tourist destination that I have drawn after conducting field surveys. These current statuses mostly have negative impacts on the development of Thai Binh tourism such as: poor infrastructure, poor awareness of visitors, loose management of relic sites, lack of research on architectural restoration... These current statuses are still happening and there is no positive solution.

Previously, I presented the three most typical and unique architectural and artistic relics of Thai Binh. These are the three largest relics with the most development potential in Thai Binh. For each relic, I provided some information about the history, structure, architectural values, and cultural values ​​of the relic to highlight the potential for developing architectural and artistic tourism in Thai Binh. Through that, we can see that Thai Binh needs to have the right direction to exploit those human resources to develop tourism.

In particular, the current state of indifference to folk art forms of the people is at an alarming level because to preserve and conserve traditional values, there needs to be proper investment and attention from all levels of government. All levels of government must have measures to continue to maintain the activities of art forms with Thai Binh characteristics and bring those artistic characteristics to serve the development of Thai Binh tourism.

Chapter 3

ADVANTAGES AND DIFFICULTIES IN TOURISM DEVELOPMENT IN THAI BINH AND SOLUTIONS TO OVERCOME THEM


3.1 Advantages and disadvantages in the development of tourism in Thai Binh

3.1.1. Advantages

Compared to the provinces in the Northern Delta, Thai Binh has a small natural land area but a relatively high density of historical and cultural relics (Thai Binh has an area of ​​over 1,500 square kilometers and has over 2,200 relics). Thai Binh is also a rich and diverse folk culture region, with traditional festivals that have existed and are still in Thai Binh considered typical in terms of quantity and diversity in types with hundreds of festivals preserved: Keo Pagoda Festival, Tien La Temple Festival, Tran Temple Festival, Hoi Village Mat Festival, Dong Xam Temple Festival... This is a valuable resource for developing Thai Binh cultural tourism.

Traditional arts in Thai Binh are also very rich in types. Thai Binh is considered the homeland of Cheo and water puppetry. These two art forms are strengths, popular activities in the spiritual life of Thai Binh village communities. Besides, Ca Tru and Chau Van are also art forms that are strongly developed in Thai Binh. Therefore, it has been improved and professionalized. The mass singing and performing movement is quite vibrant, it seems to penetrate deeply into the subconscious, into the cultural habits of the people.

In addition to the above mentioned forms, folk songs and folk dances in Thai Binh also have many unique features, especially booming during the festival season. The dances usually recreate daily life activities or customs such as dragon dance, boat rowing dance, calligraphy dance... These are all cultural beauties and invaluable cultural resources that Thai Binh is preserving to serve the spiritual life of local people and also bring out to serve the needs of the local people.

services for tourists from all over the world every festival season. Besides, Thai Binh also has hundreds of traditional craft villages that have existed for a long time, contributing to the diversity of cultural identity in Thai Binh culture. That is also an extremely valuable human resource and has the potential to develop tourism in Thai Binh.

In addition to human resources, Thai Binh sea tourism also has many advantages for tourism development such as: diverse and rich ecosystem, long coastline, beautiful landscape, infrastructure that has been and is being completed... These are advantages to combine many types of tourism at the same time to develop Thai Binh tourism.

Thai Binh authorities have recognized the potential of Thai Binh's historical and cultural relics, so there have been many policies to further exploit and promote them.

According to Mr. Nguyen Phuc Dien, Deputy Director of the Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism of Thai Binh, Thai Binh is promoting the development of spiritual tourism and craft village tourism. This is a strength of the province that continues to receive attention. In addition, Thai Binh also pays attention to completing traffic infrastructure, craft village spaces, parking lots, public works, product introduction centers, etc. to create favorable conditions for people to both produce and promote tourism products.

The agencies also have proposals for the Central and local governments to have specific investment policies, focusing on planning craft villages, and based on that, calling for investment from businesses. For some craft villages with strengths, the province creates conditions for developing community tourism programs.

Currently, Thai Binh is proposing and receiving support from the General Department of Tourism to develop community tourism in Dong Xam silver carving village. In addition, Thai Binh is actively preparing for annual tourism activities such as

Tran Temple Festival, Keo Pagoda, Tien La Temple... are big festivals that can make a big impact on promoting Thai Binh tourism.

In fact, Thai Binh is quite diverse in terms of tourism types and this place is also associated with many important historical periods of the country, so Thai Binh also has many important cultural and historical values. Therefore, the direction of developing cultural tourism, or specifically according to the research topic, architectural and artistic relic tourism is a development direction with the most potential.

3.1.2. Difficulties and challenges

Despite its great potential, architectural tourism here has not yet had any highlights and left an impression on visitors. Tourism development is still very slow, not commensurate with its inherent potential due to many limitations as follows:

Firstly, Thai Binh has many architectural and artistic relics, the most famous of which are Keo Pagoda, Tran Temple, Tien La Temple... which are quite familiar tourist destinations. However, these clusters of architectural relics are concentrated but not connected (tours are not really well built). The planning or construction of reasonable programs for these tourist destinations has not been focused on. For example, the tombs and shrines of the Tran kings are scattered throughout Hung Ha district. When tourists come to visit, they have to travel to quite far away places and do not have the guidance of tour guides or management staff. Because these are relics with a long history, it is impossible to plan or move them but must keep the current status of the architectural relics.

The second limitation is about tourism services here. Like the problem of all other localities exploiting architectural and artistic relic tourism, how to create unique tourism products that every time mentioned, tourists remember that locality. Tourism products at relic tourist destinations

The art and architecture in Thai Binh is extremely poor. When I surveyed famous tourist attractions, I noticed that most of them sell the same items such as: fish cakes, green rice flakes, peanut candy... or some types of souvenirs such as bracelets, key chains... things that can be bought anywhere, not just at Thai Binh tourist attractions. The poverty of tourism products makes tourists not interested in buying and selling. When tourists do not pay for tourism products, the source of profit cannot grow.

The third limitation is that the quality of services at architectural and artistic relic tourist attractions in Thai Binh is still very limited. Thai Binh does not have large hotels but mainly budget motels with reasonable prices (ranging from 150,000-200,000/night). The hotels are also far apart, not concentrated and often located on main roads, far from tourist attractions. For those who want to stay overnight, it is very difficult to find a satisfactory hotel. In addition, food services are also clearly limited and similar to hotels. Restaurants are quite far away and are mostly small and medium-sized. This makes it difficult for large tour groups to find restaurants with large capacity.

The next limitation is human resources. As mentioned in the first limitation, when visiting architectural and artistic relics in Thai Binh, it is difficult to find a guide to introduce the tourist site and even none (like at Tien La Temple, Tran Temple, etc.). If there are tour guides, they are inexperienced people who do not have a deep understanding of the relic site. When taking tourists around, the tour guides introduce them in a very methodical and formulaic way. Therefore, it is very boring for tourists. There are also tourist attractions that use local people as their main human resources to guide visitors, but the number is not much and those guides are often elderly people, they do two jobs at the same time.

At the same time, he is both a caretaker of the relic site and a tour guide. Thus, during the peak tourist season, many tourists will certainly not have a tour guide during their visit to that tourist site.

The next limitation is the management of the management board of architectural and artistic relics in Thai Binh. According to actual surveys when visiting tourist attractions in Thai Binh, the management board often cannot control all activities in the relics. The phenomenon of overcharging tourists is not common at the sales counters, but it appears quite often from the side of the calligraphers and fortune tellers. They are arranged in a separate area, dressed properly according to regulations, but every time a curious tourist comes to ask for fortune telling or to ask for calligraphy, the calligraphers and fortune tellers will give a ready price and bargain with the tourist (the common price is 200,000 VND/turn). Although bargaining when buying and selling is unusual for tourists, but for spiritual activities, when it comes to "bargaining", it brings a very uncomfortable feeling and tarnishes the image of tourism in spiritual places.

Some management boards also fail to control the activities of tourists when entering tourist areas, typically the burning of incense, paper money, and other votive offerings. When asked about this, many management boards responded indifferently, such as: "People have money, so they burn it" or "it's useless to ban it", while around the area, there is not a single sign or warning sign about the restriction of burning incense, paper money, or votive offerings... This situation leads to the fact that, during peak season, at spiritual tourist sites such as temples, pagodas, shrines, etc., incense smoke billows, and many tourists cannot stand it and have to leave mid-way through their worship. This is a common situation not only in architectural and artistic relic tourist areas in Thai Binh but also in all localities developing cultural and spiritual tourism. Burning too much votive offerings, incense, paper money, etc. is not only costly but also pollutes the environment.

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