Current Status of Tourism Development in Tay Ninh Province

Through the evaluation results in Table 2.4, we see some points about TNDL as follows:

- The overall evaluation score for the selected points is quite high, especially the attractiveness of TNDL, thereby showing the tourism potential of the evaluated points is quite large. This is an important premise in tourism development, especially the type of tourism associated with DTLSVH.

- Some subjects have equal or nearly equal assessment scores, meaning that the level of favorable conditions for tourism development in general is similar, but they do not develop the same types of tourism or propose the same exploitation solutions.

- Among the evaluation factors, tourism operating time is the most stable because Tay Ninh territory is not large, the terrain is quite flat, the climate is not very differentiated, so most of the evaluation points have tourism operating time almost all year round.

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- Most of the places with great tourism potential are limited by infrastructure and technical infrastructure serving tourism, so many places are just potential places.

- Tay Ninh has many places that are valuable historical revolutionary relics, but most of these places have only been initially invested in and restored to protect the relics, while the purpose of serving tourism has not been given due attention.

2.1.3. Tourism infrastructure

Tourism infrastructure is one of the factors that greatly influence tourism development. Sometimes many places have rich tourism resources but weak infrastructure so they cannot exploit and develop tourism. Typical tourism infrastructure includes:

■ Transportation system: Due to the relatively flat terrain, the province's transportation network is quite developed, including two types of transportation: road and waterway.

- Road: According to statistics up to 2016, the road traffic network in the whole province reached 8,384km, with 2 national highways, over 255 provincial roads and nearly 2,700 roads managed by communes, wards and towns, reaching a density of about 2.1km/km2 [ 7]. National Highway 22 - the first section of the Trans-Asian route through Vietnam and 22B are 2 vital traffic routes, of strategic significance not only to Tay Ninh but also to the whole country in foreign economic relations and national security and defense. The system of provincial roads and internal roads are also gradually being paved or concreted quite solidly. In the near future, when the Ho Chi Minh road section from Chon Thanh (Binh Phuoc) to Duc Hoa (Long An) passing through Tay Ninh is completed, the traffic network will be expanded.

The province's roads will be increasingly improved, more connected and easier to bring tourists to Tay Ninh.

In the past 10 years, many professional transport companies have been established. These companies are equipped with high-quality, convenient passenger car systems and mainly undertake inter-provincial transport, most of which are on the Tay Ninh - Ho Chi Minh City route. In addition, public transport such as buses and taxis have also been established and have been operating quite busily for decades. Up to now, the public transport network has been operating quite effectively, connecting all districts and towns, reaching all the way to the border gates and passing through most of the tourist attractions in the province. This transport network has welcomed a large number of tourists from Cambodia to visit tourist attractions in Tay Ninh, mainly on day trips.

- Waterway: The waterway transport system in the area is 670km long [13], quite convenient for transporting goods and passengers within the province, between provinces and between regions. The most important is the transport route on the Saigon River system and the Vam Co Dong River.

In addition to road and waterway transport, Tay Ninh can take advantage of the remaining infrastructure from the anti-American resistance war, namely Trang Lon airport (Chau Thanh) and Thien Ngon airport (Tan Bien) to develop air transport in the future.

In general, the transportation system in Tay Ninh, although not rich in types, has the advantage of easily connecting with Ho Chi Minh City and neighboring provinces. This is a great advantage of Tay Ninh in connecting tours and routes with major tourist centers at home and abroad.

■ Communication system: Currently, almost all major mobile networks in Vietnam cover the entire province, including remote and border communes. In 2016, the whole province had 1,359,115 telephone subscribers, of which more than 90% were mobile subscribers [7]. Meanwhile, the local Internet network has also grown steadily with the number of Internet subscribers increasing continuously over the years, by 2015 the rate of people using the Internet was over 50% [18].

Modern means and information services such as fax machines, EMS express delivery, fast money transfer… have become popular, helping people as well as tourists easily access and use. The quality of services is increasingly improved.

■ Power supply system: Currently, the power source for production and daily life in Tay Ninh is supplied from the Southern power system, through 9 110/220 KV transformer stations: Tay Ninh, Trang Bang industrial park, Thanh Duc, Ben Cau, Tan Hung, Tan Bien, Fico Tay Ninh cement, Bourbon and 220 KV Trang Bang 2 station.

Regarding the power grid, as of 2015, the whole province had more than 2,500km of medium-voltage lines and more than 4,000km of low-voltage lines that met technical and operational requirements. Rural electrification was promoted when 100% of communes, wards and towns had access to the national grid and nearly 100% of households used the national grid [18]. With the above power sources and power grid, it is possible to meet the needs of production, daily life and tourism activities in the area.

■ Water supply system: The water supply system has a total designed capacity of over 12,000 m3 / day and night. As of 2015, Tay Ninh has over 90 centralized water supply works, tens of thousands of dug wells and hundreds of thousands of drilled wells... enough to meet the people's needs. The proportion of rural residents using clean, hygienic water accounts for over 90% and the proportion of urban residents using clean water reaches 100% [18]. The public drainage system in urban areas meets standards, while in rural areas it mainly percolates through the soil.

It can be seen that the infrastructure system in Tay Ninh not only meets the production and living needs of local residents but is also capable of providing for tourism activities.

2.1.4. Other factors

■ Politics : Tourism is one of the economic sectors that is greatly affected by political factors. A stable political situation creates favorable conditions for the development of economic sectors, especially tourism. Although Tay Ninh is a border province, its extremely stable political situation creates conditions for increased exchange and attraction of international tourists, especially in the current context of integration.

■ Socio-economic: This factor contributes to the emergence of tourism demand in society. Tay Ninh has an increasingly stable and developing socio-economic background, especially the economic factor that has created tourism demand among the people. The increasing demand for tourism makes tourism products and services increasingly diverse, contributing to attracting tourists and prolonging their stay.

■ Policy : Following the Party and State's motto, Tay Ninh constantly multilateralizes and diversifies relations with countries and partners, creating more and more favorable conditions for the tourism industry to develop. Tay Ninh, with its favorable geographical location and open-door and integration policies, will create leverage for the tourism industry to develop (attracting capital, science and technology, international visitors, etc.), thereby contributing to accelerating the integration process with the region and the world.

■ Living standards : Along with the process of international economic integration, people's living standards are increasingly improving, the demand for tourism will continue to increase. The material and spiritual life of people in Tay Ninh in recent years has continuously increased, promoting the "demand" factor in tourism development. Intra-provincial, inter-provincial and international tourism has become an indispensable need of the people, creating a premise for the development of the tourism industry.

■ Science and technology : Along with the integration process, absorbing new trends of scientific and technological revolution has changed human production activities. Workers in the country in general and Tay Ninh in particular have gradually reduced manual labor, but the intensity and stress of work are increasing. That requires workers to recover their strength after stressful working days through rest and travel. Thus, science and technology will contribute to creating a trend of "demand" for tourism, promoting the development of tourism activities.

2.2. Current status of tourism development in Tay Ninh province

2.2.1. Tourism development by industry

2.2.1.1. Current status of tourists

- Number of tourists: In recent times, thanks to the implementation of the Party and State's economic innovation policy, tourism activities in Tay Ninh have achieved remarkable results. Through studying the current status of tourism development in the area from 2000 to 2015 (some indicators updated to 2016), the author temporarily divides it into two main stages with the time frame being 2007 when our country joined the WTO (officially approved by the National Assembly), marking comprehensive integration with the region and the world.

According to statistics from the Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism of Tay Ninh, we can see that in the period 2000 - 2007, the number of tourists to Tay Ninh increased from 953.47 thousand (in 2000) to 1,710 thousand (in 2007), with an average growth rate of 8.7%. Period 2007

- 2016, as our country increasingly integrates deeply with the region and the world, joining many

international organizations, especially the WTO, the economy has many positive changes, causing the number of tourists to increase, that trend also affects Tay Ninh tourism, the growth rate of tourist arrivals is somewhat better than the previous period, reaching 9.14%. In general, in the period 2000 - 2016, the number of tourists to Tay Ninh increased from 953.47 thousand to 3,750 thousand (including local tourists), with an average growth rate of 8.93%/year (Appendix 22). This growth rate is quite high, however, compared to the general growth rate of the Southeast region (11.2%), the growth rate of Tay Ninh is still quite low. Also in the above period, the average growth rate of tourist arrivals in our country is about 11.11%. Thus, the growth rate of tourist arrivals in Tay Ninh is still lower than the general growth rate of the Southeast region and the whole country by about 2%.

- Tourist structure: includes domestic and international tourists but there is a huge difference, domestic tourists account for over 99% of the total number of visitors to Tay Ninh, while international tourists account for less than 1% of the total number of visitors.

Thousand times

10000

2614.6 2976.84 3339.4

International guests Domestic guests

3731.8

1000

952.31

1478.43 1707.45

3689.7

100

1 1. 5

2,868

2,542

6.2

8.15 9.

14.

18.

2000 2005 2007 2008 2010 2012 2015 2016

Year

Source:[64], author's processing (drawn on logarithmic scale).

Chart 2.1. Current status of tourists to Tay Ninh in the period 2000 - 2016

■ Domestic customers:

During the period 2000 - 2007, the number of domestic tourists increased quite rapidly, from 952.31 thousand arrivals (in 2000) to 1,707.45 thousand arrivals in 2007 (appendix).

22), the average growth rate is about 8.69%. In the period of 2007 - 2016, Tay Ninh's economy has made quite steady progress, the level of domestic and international integration is increasingly deep, contributing to the number of domestic tourists to Tay Ninh tending to increase faster than the previous period, with an average growth rate of 9.08%.

In general, in the period 2000 - 2016, the number of domestic visitors to Tay Ninh increased quite steadily, from 952.31 thousand (in 2000) to 3731.8 thousand (in 2016), with an average growth rate of 8.91%/year (Appendix 22). This growth rate is quite large, however, compared to the growth rate of domestic tourists in our country and the Southeast region during the above period, the growth rate of Tay Ninh is still quite modest (8.91% compared to 11.28% and 11.4%). In the years 2008 - 2009, the global financial crisis occurred, which somewhat affected the number of domestic visitors to Tay Ninh, however, the number of domestic visitors in these years still grew quite well. Although the number of domestic visitors increased rapidly, the spending of domestic visitors was not high. In the structure of domestic visitors, the number of guests staying is increasing.

Number of visitors

1600000

1400000

1305000

1350000

1200000

1000000

800000

811590

956820

1113000

600000

400000

366120 363220

200000

35094

Year

2000 2005 2007 2008 2010 2012 2015 2016

Source: author's processing from [64].

Chart 2.2. Number of domestic visitors staying in Tay Ninh province in the period 2000 - 2016

The chart shows that the number of domestic visitors staying in 2000 was only over 35 thousand (accounting for more than 3% of the total number of visitors), by 2016 the number of domestic visitors staying reached 1.35 million (accounting for about 36% of the total number of visitors to Tay Ninh) (Appendix 22). However, the number of days visitors stayed did not increase much, by 2016 it only reached an average of 1.9 days/visitor [64].

According to the author's survey in 2016 (conducted with 560 visitors), domestic tourists coming to Tay Ninh come from all over the country but mainly from the Southeast region (if including local visitors, it accounts for about 64.6%), followed by the Mekong Delta, accounting for about 23.6%, the remaining regions account for about 11.8% of domestic visitors to Tay Ninh (Appendix 7).

11.8

23.6

64.6

Southeast

Mekong Delta Other regions

Source: Author's survey results, 2016.

Chart 2.3. Structure of domestic tourists to Tay Ninh by region in 2016 (%)

Also according to the survey results, if we consider the occupational structure of domestic tourists to Tay Ninh, we have the following results: over 50% of the surveyed visitors are farmers, workers, students; the rest are other groups (Appendix 7).

3.1

12.3

18.2

5.5

17.3

3.6

Officials, civil servants, company employees, sales

Housewife Farmer Worker

Students Other

Source: Author's survey results, 2016.

Figure 2.4. Structure of domestic tourists to Tay Ninh by occupation, 2016 (%)

Through the two charts 2.3 and 2.4, we can see that domestic tourists to Tay Ninh are mainly from the southern provinces, mostly from the Southeast region, with the main components being farmers, workers and students, other components account for a smaller proportion. That affects the quality as well as the spending level of tourists.

■ International guests:

International tourists to Tay Ninh have increased significantly in recent years. Through chart 2.1 as well as table 2.5, we can see that in the period 2000 - 2007, the number of international tourists to Tay Ninh fluctuated unsteadily, with an average growth rate of about 11.79%. In the period 2007 - 2016, the number of international tourists to Tay Ninh tended to increase rapidly and steadily, with an average growth rate of about 24.44%. It can be seen that in the context of current international integration, tourism is one of the industries most clearly affected, especially in terms of international tourists. The number of international tourists to Tay Ninh previously fluctuated unsteadily, partly due to the impact of global financial crises and world instabilities. In recent years, when the world economy has been relatively stable, the international tourist market has tended to increase steadily again.

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