Current Status of Development and Evaluation of Tourism in Lao Cai Province

2.3.4 Assessment of the current status of tourism development in Son La

From the current status of Son La tourism activities analyzed above, we can draw some of the following comments:

- Firstly, Table 6 reflects the specific results of Son La tourism over 5 years of operation. Overall assessment, in 2000 Son La welcomed 70,000 visitors, including 6,500 international visitors. Compared to the whole country in 2000 welcoming 2 million international visitors and 11 million domestic visitors, Son La only accounted for 0.32% of international visitors and 0.58% of domestic visitors, a province with rich tourism potential as presented above, with a natural area accounting for more than 4% of the total area of the country, a province with a population accounting for more than 1% of the country's population; But such a number of tourists is too low, not commensurate with its potential.

- Second, also through the results of reflection and on the basis of practical research in Son La, we see that: Although it was born late and developed slowly, Son La tourism still cannot overcome the limping situation in all activities. It can be said that: Accommodation (hotels, motels, inns) is only 1/3 of the content of tourism activities. The remaining two important parts are the organization of tourist spots and areas including historical relics, cultural relics, natural landscapes, entertainment and sightseeing spots... and the apparatus for organizing exploitation, introducing, attracting, and guiding tourism services; Including people and means of transporting tourists, no tourist comes here with the purpose of resting in a hotel, although the hotel is an important condition for tourists to enjoy the tourism products here. But the typical tourism product here clearly cannot be a hotel. One of the poorest provinces in a poor country in the world cannot have the potential for hotel development. So what is the typical tourism product in Son La? How to introduce and exploit it? If we were tour guides, where would we take visitors and what would we say to them? The answers to these 3 questions have not been carefully prepared. Many tourist attractions can be named but lack content when introducing to visitors. Or

In other words, we have not breathed life into historical and cultural relics... The roads are difficult to travel, there are no service facilities, safety is not guaranteed, the introduction is patchy, no one has been granted a tour guide card... So the investment in typical tourism products is still too little compared to the investment in hotels. There are years when many levels, many sectors, and many people pay too much attention to the investment in building accommodation facilities. Many hotel construction projects have been and are being implemented or are being considered and approved. Along National Highway 6, in any district, accommodation facilities of all economic sectors have sprung up. Right in the not-so-large town area, there are hotels of tourism companies - Son La Hotel, tourism companies - Trade Union Hotel, Provincial People's Committee Guesthouse, Hoa Ban 1 Hotel, Hoa Ban 2 Hotel, Phong Lan 1 Hotel, Phong Lan 2 Hotel, Hoa Dao Guesthouse, Hoa Hong Hotel, Hoa Anh Dao Hotel; Many guest houses of the sectors: Post Office, Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development, Foreign Trade... The spontaneous development of accommodation facilities leads to low room occupancy rates in most hotels and motels. There are very few hotels with beautiful interiors and exteriors, high service standards, and meeting the standards issued by the General Department of Tourism in Son La. However, the practice of lowering prices to attract customers and the situation of not having foreign language skills still welcoming foreign guests is quite common. Infrastructure development is a good thing and necessary. However, determining the economic growth rate of a country, a locality, an industry, or a unit is an extremely important issue that needs to be seriously studied and considered. Encourage healthy competition in an equal business environment for development. However, it is necessary to study the recommendations made at the 2nd National Hotel Conference held in Quang Ninh in 1998 about the hotel boom. Right from the first steps, Son La tourism has revealed a clear imbalance and lack of synchronization.

- Third, in terms of the level of exploiting tourism potential, it can be affirmed that: The strengths of Son La tourism are natural landscapes, ecological environment and indigenous people.

ethnic cultural identity. Many foreign tourist groups have been extremely surprised by the natural beauty of the majestic mountains and the traditional customs and cultures of the ethnic groups of Son La, but Son La's tourism introduction documents are still limited, monotonous and do not "hit" what visitors need. Investing in intelligence to create tourism products, to turn "value" into "use value" in tourism is no less important than in the field of investment in hotel construction, but in reality, it has not received due attention. The organization of exploitation and attraction of tourists is even more immature. It can be said more briefly that up to now, no tourism unit of the province has organized on-site tourism exploitation. Son La is currently giving that right to travel companies of other provinces, other countries, including the State and private sector, to be satisfied with the regular accommodation at a forced price. Temporarily divide tourism revenue into 3 parts: Revenue from travel, revenue from entertainment, recreation, sightseeing services... Revenue from accommodation services is like the root, trunk, and top of the "tourism tree", but Son La only collects the top part. Perhaps the main reason is that there is no unit strong enough in this field to rise up and take on the responsibility and be equal with colleagues. It is known that in China, the law stipulates that the locality is responsible for guiding tours and its revenue.

Thus, Son La tourism resources are given to units with the capacity to exploit them by their own exploitation capacity. Information about Son La tourism has not been fully integrated into the domestic and international tourism market. Son La tourism is seriously lacking in information. Son La exploits its tourism potential in a very primitive and spontaneous manner.

In recent years, various types of ecotourism in Son La have been organized by domestic and foreign travel companies, but unfortunately not by any tourism unit in Son La. These are mountain climbing tours, picnic tours, cycling tours, boating tours, tours combined with environmental research... And through research on the natural, economic and social characteristics of Son La, there are

It can be seen that with more than 14,055km2 , accounting for 4.29% of the country's area. With majestic mountain and river terrain and favorable climate, Son La has great potential for ecotourism development.

Everyone knows that the goal of tourism is to satisfy the legitimate needs of tourists. After each trip, what impression does it leave on tourists? Eating and sleeping are essential needs, including the element of enjoyment, but they are not the purpose of the trip. It is simple but also true when our ancestors said: "travel to know here and there ...", the experience today is to know the country, to know the people. And that knowledge of people is mainly and first of all the national cultural identity. Is this the strength of Son La tourism?

2.3.5. Current status of tourism development and assessment in Lao Cai province

Lao Cai is one of the provinces rich in tourism resources, very favorable for the development of tourism economy. That is the natural landscape of mountains and forests; cultural traditions rich in national identity and attractive; especially the Lao Cai international border gate is very favorable for the development of trade and tourism economy. Therefore, the Government and the General Department of Tourism have chosen Sa Pa - Lao Cai as one of the specialized tourist areas of the country to have a direction for investment and development.

In recent years, Lao Cai tourism has had encouraging developments, with an average growth rate of over 30% per year. Up to now, the whole province has had over 180 accommodation establishments with over 4,000 rooms serving domestic and foreign tourists. Tourism activities in the area have developed richly and diversely, from marketing, travel, hotels, transportation to other services. Lao Cai province has built many contents and programs, mobilized many resources to invest in development to ensure the right direction. Tourism development has led to the development of many other economic sectors, contributing to the economic restructuring of the province, improving people's lives, raising the intellectual level and beautifying the landscape and environment.

Promoting its strengths, in recent years, Lao Cai tourism has had steady development steps, gradually becoming the tourism - trade center of the Northwest region of the country. The success of cultural events

- National and international tourism such as Raid Gauloises adventure sports race, Bac Ha Tourism Festival, Thuong Temple Spring Festival, Sa Pa 100th year tourism festival, Vietnam - China International Trade Fair... have shown the growth of Lao Cai tourism in recent times. The average annual GDP growth rate of the whole province is over 10%, of which the tourism industry alone is 30%/year. Lao Cai's socio-economic structure is in the stage of gradually increasing the proportion of trade - tourism services, gradually reducing the proportion of agriculture.

In recent years, the tourism industry has coordinated with the culture industry to restore and organize many typical cultural festivals to diversify types of tourism to attract visitors. With the advantage of the Lao Cai - Ha Khau international border gate, the tourism industry has been focusing on exploiting the Chinese tourist market by many measures: Building tourism programs according to the tastes of Chinese visitors, organizing promotional and propaganda forms at fairs between the two countries, simplifying immigration procedures, extending the opening time of the border gate to 22:00... Therefore, the number of Chinese tourists coming to Lao Cai has continuously increased over the years: In 2003, it reached 54,000 arrivals, accounting for 40% of the total number of international visitors to Lao Cai. In 2004, despite many changes in the mechanisms and policies of China and Vietnam, Lao Cai still welcomed

480,000 visitors. In 2005, in response to major national holidays, the three provinces of Lao Cai - Yen Bai - Phu Tho signed a cooperation agreement to organize a year of tourism towards the roots. This will be a good opportunity to promote more attractive tourist destinations of Lao Cai to domestic and foreign tourists and create a premise for the following years.

Tourism activities are constantly developing, expanding exchanges to improve people's spiritual life contributes to socio-economic development, ensuring national security and defense, meeting the requirements of the country's innovation.

However, the more tourism activities develop, the more the problem arises of preserving the natural and human ecological environment, local cultural products in the face of increasing tourist inflows and commercialization of the market. The issues of tourist management, tourist education, market orientation, are important factors in preserving the cultural values of the community - an important factor in the long-term and sustainable tourism development strategy.

Currently, the organization and management of tourism business activities in Lao Cai province is undertaken by the Department of Trade and Tourism. Department of Trade

- Lao Cai Tourism has advised the provincial People's Committee to carry out tasks related to the management of tourism business activities in the area. In order to effectively exploit the potential and strengths of the province's tourism resources, in recent years, Lao Cai province has developed many programs and projects to develop the tourism economy, including the Lao Cai Tourism Economic Development Project for the period 2001 - 2005 and until 2010. The implementation process has affirmed the correct position and role of Lao Cai tourism in the province's economic and social strategy, making tourism truly a spearhead economic sector bringing high socio-economic efficiency, expanding domestic and international cooperation and promoting the development of other economic sectors.

2.3.5.1 Infrastructure.

a) Traffic.

- Road: There are 4 national highways passing through, of which National Highway 70 is the most important. This is the trans-Asian route connecting the Southwest region - China with Vietnam and ASEAN countries. Provincial roads and rural roads, currently have car routes to all communes and wards in the province.

- Railway: There are 2 main railway lines, which are the international railway line Hanoi - Lao Cai - Ha Khau - Kunming and the dedicated railway line Pho Lu - Cam Duong.

However, the railway, signal system, carriages, sanitation services and stations are of low quality and outdated, so they cannot meet the travel needs of tourists and people.

- Waterway: Red River and Chay River are the two main rivers flowing through Lao Cai Province. In addition, there are many other rivers and streams with high economic value, but due to the characteristics of high mountains and steep rivers, waterway transportation still has many limitations.

- Air route: Currently, the Civil Aviation Administration of Vietnam is conducting a survey to establish a project, and it is expected that the new Lao Cai airport will be built by 2010.

b) Electrical system:

Currently, 9/9 districts, towns and 115 communes and wards have national grid electricity.

Regarding power supply: supply is guaranteed but the system is not guaranteed because the old network system did not meet the demand, as well as aesthetics and safety.

c) Water supply and drainage.

The clean water supply system meets standards in Lao Cai town and most districts, along with the well system, providing water for 42% of the province's population.

The drainage system is mainly concentrated in some urban areas, but the quality and treatment are not guaranteed, the content of toxins and odors is still high. Some tourist urban areas almost take advantage of the steep mountains, self-flowing without being treated according to prescribed standards.

d) Contact information.

Post and telecommunications is one of the industries that has made rapid progress in both quantity and quality. The network is present in most districts and towns, initially meeting the socio-economic needs of the province and in tourism activities.

2.3.5.2. Specialized tourism facilities

a) Accommodation:

Table 2.8

Year 2001	Year 2002	2003	Year 2004	Year 2005	Take note uncle
Number of hotels/ guest house	97	108	121	150	170
Number of rooms residence	1,261	1,404	1,573	2,000	2,260
Number of beds	2,000	2,500	2,750	3,802	4,097

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- Comments, reviews:

Technical infrastructure for tourism is an important element of tourism products. Designing and developing suitable facilities not only creates the attractiveness of tourist areas and destinations, but also improves economic efficiency through investment and exploitation.

In recent years, with the attention and investment of all levels and sectors, Lao Cai province has initially formed tourist areas and destinations with a system of infrastructure that meets the conditions for tourism services. However, the tourist areas and destinations and the investment in construction are still spontaneous, due to the lack of specific planning and small scale, so the quality is limited and not strong enough to serve tourists.

Accommodation facilities in Lao Cai are mainly concentrated in Sa Pa (about 70%), Lao Cai town (about 20%), the rest are in Bac Ha, Bao Yen, Bao Thang. Currently, in some villages there is also a type of home-stay accommodation (homestay), concentrated in some places such as Ta Van, Thanh Phu, Ban Ho, Sin Chai...

However, in addition to large foreign hotels, large enterprises with high quality investment such as: Victoria, Singapore joint venture, Company