Transnational and transcontinental tourism has been creating the basic conditions to promote the growth of this tourism trend.
Myanmar, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam have a long history of formation and development, and are one of the cradles of human civilization. From the cultural, historical, religious and belief resonance of the countries of the Greater Mekong Subregion, plus the similarity of agricultural production activities, in which wet rice cultivation is the main form of cultivation, the ethnic groups of the countries in the subregion all have very basic common denominators in customs, habits, behaviors, ways of thinking...
Myanmar is known as the Golden Earth, consisting of 135 ethnic groups with their own languages and scripts, of which the Bamar ethnic group accounts for 70% of the population. Myanmar is a Buddhist country with more than 80% of the population following Theravada Buddhism. Therefore, many temples and pagodas have been built such as Chauk Htat Gyi Pagoda, famous for its giant reclining Buddha statue 72m long and 16m high; Shwezigon Pagoda was built by King Anwrahta in the 11th century to preserve Buddha's relics,... The most famous is Shwedagon, the pagoda considered the pride of Myanmar. The pagoda is covered with 80 tons of gold, so it is called the Golden Pagoda. The feeling of fairy-tale magnificence is the impression of most visitors when visiting here. In traditional Myanmar villages, pagodas are the center of cultural life. The most important festival is the pagoda festival. Myanmar is also known as the land of gold, silver, gemstone jewelry, art paintings, handicrafts, lacquerware, Mandalay silk... Folk art with puppet shows and mystical paintings also contribute to the excitement of foreign tourists.
Thailand is also a multi-ethnic country. About 75% of the population is ethnically Thai, 14% is ethnically Chinese and 3% is ethnically Malay, with the remainder being from other ethnic minority groups. Theravada Buddhism is the state religion in Thailand, with a 94.7% adherent rate, one of the highest in the world. As a Buddhist country, Thailand celebrates important anniversaries with ceremonies that give Buddhists across the country an opportunity to make merit, with offerings to monks and candlelit processions at night, such as: Magha Puja in February, commemorating the day 1,250 devotees gathered to hear the Buddha preach; Visaka Puja in May, commemorating Vesak, the Buddha's birthday.
The Buddha's Enlightenment and Parinirvana Day; Khao Phansa in July to declare the beginning of the Buddhist Rains Retreat, which also marks the end of the annual monsoon. The Rains Retreat ends three months later with Kathin, when people present new robes to monks; Luang Wiang Lakon in Lampang in February, a solemn procession of the Buddha image with the participation of the former Chiang Mai Royal Family, etc. In addition, there are other festivals such as: Royal Festival, Yasothon Rocket Festival, Phi Ta Khon Festival, Phichit Boat Racing Festival, Chak Phrra Festival, Buffalo Racing Festival in Chonburi, Wax Castle Festival in Sakhon Nakhon, Lanna Boat Racing Festival, Flower Festival in Chiang Mai, etc.
Maybe you are interested!
-
Economic cooperation process between countries in the East-West Corridor 1998 - 2010 - 21 -
Forms of Participation in the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Forum -
Implementing Land Consolidation, Plot Exchange, Production Cooperation, Economic Development Page -
Benefits of the Economic Cooperation between Export-Import Enterprises of Vietnam and China -
Model system to assess the suitability of Vietnam's population-economic development process - 21
Laos is home to more than 80 ethnic groups, divided into 4 language groups: Lao - Thai, Mon - Khmer, Meo - Dao, Tibetan - Burmese. In addition to the Lao Lum ethnic group, which makes up the majority, each Lao ethnic group has its own cultural identity, creating a diverse and priceless cultural treasure. Currently, Laos still preserves hundreds of historical and cultural relics of tourism value, such as: That Luong Tower, Xi Muong Pagoda, Vat Xa Ket, Den Pha Keo, Vat Xieng Khuan, Victory Statue Gate, Vientiane's ancient capital wall, Lao ethnic garden (in Vientiane); Chom Xi Tower, Vi Xun Pagoda, Vat Xieng Thoong, Old Royal Palace (in Luang Prabang); Plain of Jars (Xieng Khoang); Stone pillars, Ing Hang Tower, Xaynhaphum Pagoda, Deer Hin Palace (in Savannakhet); Vat Phu Pagoda, Xa Phai Village (in Champasac),... Laos is also known as the land of festivals, with festivals every month of the year. Every year, there are 4 Tet holidays: New Year, Lunar New Year (like in some East Asian countries), Lao New Year (Bun Pi May in April) and Hmong New Year (December). The festivals that can be mentioned are: Bun Pha Vet (Buddha's incarnation) in January; Bun VisakhaPuya (Buddha's birthday) in April; Bun Bang Phay (Ascension fireworks) in May; Bun Khao Phan Sa (Lent) in July; Bun Khao Padapdin (Remembering the deceased) in September; Bun Suanghua (Boat racing) in October...
Vietnam is located on the migration route of cultural flows from North to South, from East to West. Over 4000 years of civilization, many unique cultural nuances have been formed. It can be said that Vietnam is a country of festivals. Each festival has its own cultural features and values, remembering the merits of the ancestors who reclaimed land and established villages; The heroes who fought off foreign invaders and protected the country;
Festivals to pray for national peace and prosperity, favorable weather, and bountiful harvests. Festivals to honor the national heroes who fought to protect the country; the ancestors who reclaimed land and established villages and to demonstrate the martial spirit of the nation such as: Dong Da Mound Festival, Hai Ba Trung Temple Festival, Kiep Bac Temple Festival, Buffalo Fighting Festival in Do Son... The most prominent is the Hung Temple Festival of national significance to honor the Hung Kings who built the country. Festivals to pray for national peace and prosperity, favorable weather, lush forests and seas, and bountiful harvests such as: Cau Ngu Festival; Ca Ong Festival; Thang Tam Temple Festival... In the process of cultural assimilation, many new cultural festivals have been formed, further enriching and diversifying the national culture: Da Lat Flower Festival; Hue Festival; Nha Trang Sea Festival, Ha Long Sea Festival; International Fireworks Festival in Da Nang... In particular, provinces and cities have been very creative in organizing festivals with profound contemporary significance, typically: "National Reunification Festival", "Trans-Asia Bridge" Festival in Quang Tri...
Vietnamese culture is imbued with the cultural characteristics of the Village. Coming to Vietnamese villages, visitors also have the opportunity to learn about the techniques of producing handicrafts, freely shop for local products such as Bat Trang pottery, Dong Ho paintings, Hang Trong paintings, Ha Dong silk... Vietnam is a multi-ethnic and multi-religious country with 54 ethnic groups. Each ethnic group has its own cultural nuances. Coming to ethnic minorities, visitors will return to a cultural space that still preserves the wildness of the prehistoric times; admire unique architectural constructions such as the Stilt House, the Long House, listen to Then singing, the sound of the panpipe, the sound of the To Nung instrument with the sound of the mountains and forests, the passionate Xoe and Sap dances and the mysterious rituals... Vietnamese religions have quite unique cultural and spiritual features. The most prominent are the Buddha's Birthday of Buddhism and the La Vang palanquin (Quang Tri) of Catholicism...
The heroic tradition of fighting against foreign invaders of the Vietnamese people has created a dense system of historical and cultural relics and revolutionary war relics. These are Co Loa Citadel, the Bach Dang River Battlefield, Hong Thai Communal House - Tan Trao Banyan Tree, Karl Marx Mountain, Lenin Stream, Dien Bien Phu, Dong Loc Junction, Hien Luong Bridge - Ben Hai River, Vinh Moc Tunnels, Ta Con, Khe Sanh - Road 9, Quang Tri Ancient Citadel, Cu Chi Tunnels, Independence Palace, Ho Chi Minh Trail.
Minh… Every place name, every relic, every time it is mentioned, evokes strong emotions and pride. In particular, Vietnam possesses many valuable tangible and intangible cultural heritages of humanity. These are Hoi An Ancient Town, My Son Sanctuary, Hue Ancient Capital Architectural Complex, Thang Long Imperial Citadel, Ho Dynasty Citadel, Hue Royal Court Music, Nguyen Dynasty Woodblocks, Doctorate Steles at the Temple of Literature, Ca Tru, Bac Ninh Quan Ho folk songs, Xoan singing... which have become "strong brands" to promote and attract international tourists.
Cultural values have become the spiritual foundation and motivation for the countries of the Mekong River Subregion to build and develop their countries. For tourism activities, culture plays a particularly important role, deciding the formation of tourism products. However, to exploit and turn culture into tourism products is not simple. Culture is a collection of documents containing historical and cultural values, revolutionary history, cultural achievements of the nation, of the communities, and cultural products are cultural values that have been planned, designed, and promoted to exploit tourism activities. In recent years, along with other tourism products, cultural tourism has become an attractive tourism product attracting a large number of tourists to the Mekong Sub-region countries. Many attractive tours have been formed such as: "Central Heritage Road", "Central Highlands Green Road", "Legendary Ho Chi Minh Trail", "Reminiscence of the old battlefield and comrades", "Eating three countries in one day", Caravan tourism, etc.
As an important component of the EWEC strategy, tourism development has attracted special attention from policy makers, businesses, investors and international donors. In particular, ADB has played a pioneering role in supporting tourism development in the GMS in general and EWEC in particular. ADB's tourism development strategy and sustainable tourism development projects in this region have clearly defined objectives to gradually transform simple transport links into connecting networks and tourist destinations in EWEC and the GMS in general. Specifically:
- Developing secondary infrastructure and facilities for tourism.
- Develop quality tourism products.
- Improve infrastructure and small-scale transportation to each destination location.
- Facilitate increased cross-border trade and travel, including the institutional and legal environment.
- Determine the general marketing strategy at the national and regional levels and the roles of the parties in this process [126, p21].
The East-West Economic Corridor is a corridor with diverse terrain and climate, including the coastal plain of Mawlamyine (Myanmar), the lowlands and many mountains of southern Northern Thailand, the plains, primeval forests and hills of Savannakhet and the mountainous midlands of Central Vietnam. Therefore, the East-West Economic Corridor has great potential for tourism development due to its unified and diverse nature. On the EWEC, there are many tourist destinations, rich in types: historical, cultural, ecological relics... Especially, there are world heritages: Hue Imperial City, Hue Royal Court Music (Vietnam) and Wesady Imperial City (Myanmar), Sukhothai (Thailand) and from here, visitors can visit two other adjacent world heritages: Hoi An Ancient Town, My Son Sanctuary in Vietnam... creating unique and attractive tourism products on the ASEAN tourism map. The tourism product “East-West Corridor” will connect with the tourism programs “Central Heritage Road”, “Legendary Road”, “Reminiscence of the old battlefield and comrades” of Central Vietnam... into a series of unique and separate tours.
Located at the eastern end of the Corridor, the trade hub to the East Sea not only of EWEC but also of the entire Greater Mekong Subregion, the provinces and cities of Central Vietnam have great potential for developing tourism economy, reflected in the following aspects:
Firstly, the provinces and cities in Central Vietnam are convenient gateways to the sea for EWEC. We can cooperate in transit transportation, support localities of neighboring countries to open routes to the sea, and act as a hub for supplying goods and raw materials. Marine and coastal economy is also an important advantage of the provinces in Central Vietnam that other localities in Laos and some localities in Thailand in the Corridor do not have. Our Central provinces can provide marine economic products and marine tourism that are very popular with neighboring localities.
Second, the Central region is a land with great potential for development, but suffers many consequences of war, harsh climate and still faces many difficulties.
Therefore, in recent years, the Party and the State have always paid attention to the socio-economic development of the Central region. Many policies have been issued to build the Central key economic region into a dynamic development region, creating jobs, improving the living standards and intellectual level of the population, shifting the economic structure towards industrialization and modernization with the goal of rapid and sustainable economic growth, strongly developing the industrial and service sectors, in which special attention is paid to developing high-quality service sectors of regional and international stature. At the same time, the provinces in the Central region have received great support from the donor community through programs and projects to strengthen capacity, institutions, policies, develop infrastructure, reduce poverty, mitigate natural disasters, develop sustainable environment... With the formation of EWEC, the provinces and cities in the Central region have more opportunities and motivation to promote the priorities and incentives of the Party and State's policies, effectively use the investment resources of donors to successfully implement the development goal of the Central key economic region in the relationship of the region with the whole country, with the common development of the East-West Corridor within the framework of GMS regional development cooperation, creating growth poles to promote the development of a large part of the Central Coast and Central Highlands provinces on the basis of exploiting domestic resources and the potential of countries in the region.
Third, it is possible to cooperate in tourism linkage between local regions from sea tourism, eco-tourism, environmental tourism, to cultural and historical tourism... with the investment of the Government and localities to improve the development of transport infrastructure, allowing the connection of four world cultural heritages of related countries, implementing the initiative "three countries, one destination". The idea of "having breakfast in Thailand, lunch in Laos, swimming and dinner in Central Vietnam" can now become a reality.
By 2010, there had been many comprehensive studies on the tourism areas along the corridor as attractive tourist destinations. The studies had delved into potential tourism infrastructure projects in localities along the corridor on the borders of Thailand, Laos and Vietnam. In particular, in the international workshop on tourism development cooperation between the provinces of North Central Vietnam with Laos and Thailand held in Hue city on November 28, 2008, the three countries signed a memorandum of understanding.
with many important contents. In which, the goal of turning the East-West economic corridor into a branded road tourism route in Southeast Asia is emphasized. The three countries will create the most favorable conditions for the flow of tourists. Focus on developing tourism products and services, building a common strategy on sharing other markets, promoting tourism and signing joint venture contracts between travel - transportation - service providers. At the same time, the three countries will proactively cooperate bilaterally and multilaterally in exchanging information, experience, supporting the development and improvement of human resources... These are initial efforts to create a legal corridor to gradually turn the idea of developing the East-West tourism corridor into reality.
By the end of 2010, cooperation in the field of tourism between localities and countries along the EWEC had achieved very important initial results, creating a premise for the development of tourism in particular and EWEC in general in the next period.
After the completion of the Friendship Bridge across the Mekong River connecting Mukdahan and Dansavanh in 2006, tourism cooperation on the EWEC was promoted. In 2007, in the first 6 months alone, about 160,000 visitors came to Vietnam through Lao Bao border gate (an increase of 40% compared to the same period last year), the number of visitors through Lao Bao international border gate for the whole year was 404,500 (double that of 2006). In 2008, despite the difficulties caused by the financial crisis, the number of imported and exported cars through Lao Bao border gate was still 56,000, equal to 2007; the number of tourists through Lao Bao border gate in 2008 increased by 32,629 compared to 2007.
The birth of EWEC with the Trans-Asia Highway has truly created the "hardware" for the tourism problem. Mr. Pichai Raktashinha - Director of Indochina Tourism Development (Tourism Authority of Thailand) did not hide: "Choosing Vietnam as an important partner in cooperation in developing tourism on the EWEC route is our current plan. Especially exploiting the source of tourists from Vietnam and international tourists to Vietnam". Therefore, in Mukdahan, a large commercial center of the city was named Da Nang over 10 years ago. And further in the South, the "capital" of tourism Phu Khet also has restaurants and shops named Da Nang, along with other places in Vietnam.
Nam. Since the EWEC route has not been completed, the Mayor of Mukdahan ordered his subordinates to learn Vietnamese, while the Thai Embassy sent teachers to Da Nang to teach Thai to businessmen in the Central region. Since 2004, the Thai Ambassador to Vietnam, Mr. Krit Kraichitti, has personally realized the possibility of tourism cooperation between the four countries by attracting many travel agencies to quickly draw up timely recommendations to submit to the Government such as abolishing entry visas between Laos and Vietnam, between Laos and Thailand.
Thai travel agencies have outlined a vision for their customers: Morning coffee in Mukdahan (Thailand), lunch in Savannakhet (Laos) and evening swimming in Non Nuoc beach (Da Nang). Both China and Japan have also begun exploiting the EWEC. Since 2005, Yunnan and Guangxi have officially been present on the EWEC with the implementation of transport projects connecting to destinations on the EWEC, expanding the tourism belt of southwestern China with destinations in the Mekong sub-region. Japan has prioritized providing ODA capital for infrastructure development projects, poverty reduction of GMS member countries with localities in the EWEC. On the EWEC road, now the people of Myanmar, Thailand, and Laos have started a fever to build economic zones, open more schools to teach "Vietnamese studies", and prepare travel agencies.
In tourism cooperation on EWEC, Central Vietnam with 4 world cultural heritages and the advantage of being the easternmost point of the East-West Economic Corridor as a balcony facing the Pacific Ocean is certainly the place that benefits the most. For the people of Northeast Thailand and Laos, sea tourism with marine products is a great attraction. On the other hand, when Thailand has been the destination of millions of international tourists every year, the easy and attractive journey through Asia will certainly continue to be an extension of their travel itinerary. Vietnam will have a huge source of tourists if it knows how to exploit from here. Meanwhile, Thai and Lao tourists really like the scenery and sea in Central Vietnam. Prices are relatively low compared to their income. They do not have high demands on tourism services, suitable for the capacity of accommodation facilities, restaurants, and commerce in the Central region.
The Central Heritage Road is the name of a tourism program launched by the Vietnam National Administration of Tourism, aiming to connect world heritage sites in the Central region with