Experience in Improving Competitiveness of Some Countries and Localities in Vietnam

Cuisine		x	x		x
11	Tourism activities		x			X
12	Night activities		x	x		X
13	Souvenirs		x	x		X
14	Events	x	x	x		X
III	Image of the destination
15	Travel experience	x	x	x		X
16	Price of the product	x	x	x	x	X
17	Management team/staff	x	x		x
18	Promotion	x	x	x
19	Destination awareness	x	x	x		X
20	Approach	x	x	x	x	X
IV	Effectiveness of support resources
21	Medical	x	x	x	x	X
22	Finance/ Banking	x	x		x	X
23	Telecommunication system		x	x	x	X
24	Hospitality	x	x	x	x
25	VISA Requirements	x	x		x	X
26	Market Relations	x	x	x	x	X
27	Business	x	x			X
28	Politics		x	x
29	Safety/security	x	x	x	x	X
V	Tourism Destination Development Policy and Management
30	Human resource development	x	x	x	x	X
31	Capacity and capacity	x	x	x		X
32	Local government awareness tourism business	x	x	x	x	X
33	Perceptions of destination residents	x	x	x		X
34	Branding	x	x	x
35	Linkage, cooperation	x	x	x		X
36	Destination policy	x	x	x	x	X
VI	NLCT in tourism at destination
1	A highly competitive destination		x	x		X
2	Sustainable development policy	x	x	x	x	X
3	Competitiveness of enterprises	x	x	x	x	X

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(Source: Author synthesized from the theory of the topic )

2.4. Experience in improving competitiveness of some countries and localities in Vietnam

2.4.1. Experience of some localities in other countries and experience for Tien Giang

2.4.1.1. Improving competitiveness in tourism business in the Northeastern provinces of Thailand

The two provinces of Chieng Rai and Chieng Mai, Thailand are two provinces in the Northeast region of Thailand, where there are many historical and cultural relics and hundreds of traditional craft villages.

However, this is a sparsely populated area, the economy is slow to develop, people's income is low, and traditional craft villages are gradually disappearing. Faced with these difficulties, in 1999, at the initiative of the Department of Export Promotion (DEP) under the Ministry of Commerce of Thailand, in coordination with the Ministry of Tourism and Sports, the "one village, one craft" movement, also known as the OTOP (one Tambon-one product) movement, was launched. The goal of this program focuses on: improving the quality of life of residents, preserving and strengthening indigenous culture, encouraging residents to decide on their own way of life, and contributing to the conservation of natural resources and the environment [15].

To enhance the competitiveness of tourism business in these two localities, Thai authorities at all levels from the central level to the provincial level of Chieng Rai and Chieng Mai have issued policies to encourage craft villages to produce high-quality tourism products. Tourism products are divided into 5 levels of product quality, from 1 star to 5 stars. The government especially supports products that reach 3 stars or higher, with 5 stars being given the highest priority. At the same time, authorities at all levels have involved people in restoring and preserving local cultural values, thereby, many remote villages in rural areas have become attractive tourist destinations, and local residents have realized that tourism has created more income for them, through training in traditional crafts, training local people to use their inherent knowledge of traditional agricultural methods to support themselves and introduce tourists to the importance of agriculture in their lives...

2.4.1.2. Developing cultural tourism associated with community tourism - Homestay of Malaysia

In 2013, Malaysia ranked 34th in the world in terms of tourism competitiveness, and is a country that attaches great importance to the development of ecotourism [100]. To enhance its competitiveness in the tourism business, Malaysia has developed ecotourism, cultural ecotourism in Malaysia is community-based tourism -

Homestay is one of the popular types of ecotourism in Malaysia.

When participating in this type of tourism, tourists will stay and live with local people as family members, explore the lifestyle of the local people, experience daily life to learn about the culture of the people at the destination. Homestay tourism is of particular importance to Malaysia, considered a strength in terms of competitiveness in the tourism business in Malaysia [15]. In addition, to improve competitiveness in the tourism business and attract more tourists, Malaysia has developed diverse, world-class tourism products at competitive prices, especially resort tourism, entertainment, adventure sports, shopping locations... Malaysia is currently promoting the development of new products such as medical tourism, educational tourism and MICE business tourism. To attract more tourists, Malaysia always focuses on creating new tourism products, satisfying all the needs of tourists around the world...

2.4.1.3. Successfully building the Bali island tourism area, Indonesia

Bali's sea island area was previously an underdeveloped, wild area, Bali's tourism resources are mainly sea - islands, and traditional culture. To improve competitiveness in sea island tourism business, Bali's sea island authorities at all levels have soon proposed a tourism strategy oriented towards nature, preserving and maintaining biodiversity, promoting the unique cultural identity of the nation towards sustainable tourism development, thereby changing a wild sea island area into a world-famous eco-tourism area. Specifically: local authorities have focused on and prioritized indigenous cultural service business to create a difference in tourism service business compared to other competitive destinations; Proposing sustainable tourism development projects in Bali, aiming to manage tourism and plan comprehensive development for a geographical economic region... Currently, Bali's sea island is an attractive and famous tourist destination because of its highly developed arts, including dance, sculpture, painting, leather goods,

metallurgy and Balinese music. To succeed in attracting tourists, Bali tourism businesses have made the most of human tourism resources: combining outstanding local cultural content with active community participation to create cultural tourism products that meet tourists' needs.

2.4.2. Experience of some localities in Vietnam

2.4.2.1. Experience of Ben Tre

Ben Tre is a province in the Mekong Delta, with a dense system of rivers and canals, so it is very favorable for the development of garden ecotourism. Ben Tre is a fertile land formed by four major rivers: Tien, Ham Luong, Ba Lai and Co Chien. To improve the competitiveness of tourism business, to attract more tourists to the locality, Ben Tre tourism industry has been successful in building and developing tourism products/services: Visiting fruit gardens, Southern folk music, horse-drawn carriages, rowing boats, visiting coconut candy kilns, handicraft production facilities from coconut trees with unique products that are popular with tourists.

In addition, in order to attract more tourists to Ben Tre, in the tourism development plan of Ben Tre province until 2015 and vision to 2020, the leaders of Ben Tre province have identified priority investment in garden tourism, to meet the needs of entertainment and nature exploration of tourists, while contributing to raising awareness and sense of responsibility of local residents and tourists in protecting the natural environment [19].

2.4.2.2. Experience of Ho Chi Minh City

Ho Chi Minh City is a place where many ethnic groups live, with a diversity of culture, customs, festivals and lifestyles, and is home to many architectural works, historical relics and folk cultural elements. Ho Chi Minh City's tourism industry has been successful in the tourism business by combining resources: human resources, natural resources such as parks

ecotourism, natural landscapes to attract more tourists to the city. Ho Chi Minh City tourism industry determined that these resources must be used reasonably to serve tourism in a balanced and harmonious way to develop the diversity of nature, society and culture. This is considered an important focus in improving competitiveness in tourism business, thereby developing sustainable tourism for Ho Chi Minh City. In addition, Ho Chi Minh City focuses on raising people's awareness of tourism development, ensuring community participation and supervision in the tourism development process.

Ho Chi Minh City has issued policies to improve competitiveness in tourism business: Proposing measures to deal with irresponsible tourism organizations that affect the natural environment; Providing information to tourists about the surrounding environment and local culture, explaining to tourists about appropriate behaviors when visiting natural areas; Focusing on developing culture and cultural heritage sites.

2.4.2.3. Experience of Ba Ria - Vung Tau province

Ba Ria - Vung Tau province benefits from rich cultural resources, many natural resources and natural landscapes with diverse flora and fauna... In particular, the beaches including: Front Beach, Back Beach, Dau Beach, Pineapple Beach and Chi Linh, Vong Nguyet Beach, Thuy Tien Beach are the most beautiful and accessible beaches, being chosen by domestic and foreign tourists as ideal places for sightseeing, entertainment and swimming when coming to Ba Ria - Vung Tau. Ba Ria - Vung Tau province is the gateway to the East Sea of the Southeast region, with great potential for developing the marine economy, the coastline of Ba Ria - Vung Tau province from Nghinh Phong Cape (Vung Tau city) to Binh Chau (Xuyen Moc district) is about 75km long with many advantages for tourism development.

To enhance competitiveness in tourism business, while promoting and sustainably developing the tourism industry, Ba Ria - Vung Tau province has focused on the following issues: Strengthening the reform of the education and training system towards improving

quality of human resources; Improve the quality of tourism products/services: focus on developing tourism types and tourism products with high economic value; Focus on developing a quality and synchronous infrastructure system; Promote administrative reform, enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of the work of building and implementing strategies, plans, schemes and policies.

2.4.2.4. Experience of Dong Thap

Dong Thap tourism in recent years has generally made significant progress, creating jobs for tens of thousands of workers, improving people's lives, and contributing to the positive economic restructuring of the province.

To improve the competitiveness in tourism business with other destinations, Dong Thap has focused on proposing policies and strategies such as: Focusing on investing in completing and synchronizing the transport infrastructure system leading to key tourist destinations; Prioritizing investment in developing services at tourist destinations associated with promoting tangible and intangible cultural values to exploit the unique tourism products of each tourist destination; Strengthening communication and promotion of tourism images and traditional handicraft products of the province; Investing in restoring and embellishing historical, cultural and ancient architectural relics to include in tourist routes; Training to improve the skills of professional tourism service staff to improve service quality; Training tourism knowledge for the community in areas with tourist destinations so that people have the opportunity to participate in service business activities at tourist destinations; Researching and developing more Dong Thap souvenir products...

2.4.3. Lessons learned to improve competitiveness in tourism business for Tien Giang

2.4.3.1. International experience

1) Improve competitiveness in tourism business through developing craft villages

To improve competitiveness in tourism business and attract more tourists to visit craft villages, the provincial government in Tien Giang needs to implement issues such as:

- Pay attention to supporting craft villages in tourist areas/spots of Thoi Son, Thap Muoi, Cai Be..., such as: supporting preferential loans from the Government for people to develop production, organizing training and transferring technology to residents, coordinating with central ministries to support marketing, sales promotion,... In addition, it is necessary to encourage the restoration and preservation of local cultural identity values, preserving and transforming the crystallization into each product and promoting the creativity of craftsmen and artisans who have made these products. It is necessary to establish a set of standards for classifying/evaluating product quality (can apply the model of Chieng Rai and Chieng Mai - Thailand, assigning a ranking from 1 - 5 stars or mai flowers to products).

- The government should encourage the organization of street markets on key routes in tourist areas/spots, build more night markets... to create conditions for craft villages to introduce and sell their products to tourists. At the same time, display products labeled with stars or mai flowers in national/international trade fairs. These items should enjoy tax exemption or reduction policies. Local authorities need to create conditions for travel businesses to regularly organize tours to craft villages so that domestic and foreign tourists can see with their own eyes the activities of craft villages, the production process of products, and tourists can produce those products themselves. In addition, local authorities need to issue development planning policies, in which they call on residents in rural areas to preserve the pristine beauty of their locality, protect trees and reduce noise, and preserve the architectural style of the river region typical of the Mekong Delta.

2) Improve competitiveness in homestay tourism business

To improve the competitiveness of homestay tourism and attract tourists, Tien Giang tourism industry needs to implement the following issues:

- Proactively request joint efforts between different levels of government, the private sector, and local communities. It is necessary to establish a homestay tourism association to better manage and operate homestay tourism. The government needs to license villages/communes and member households to participate in the program, and provide infrastructure investment funds, support for house upgrading for participating households, (for example, support capital for each household participating in homestay tourism to renovate toilet systems, kitchens, etc.).

- Establish a consulting group under the Association, organize advocacy, identify and help households with conditions to participate, establish licensing procedures, etc. Establish criteria to select households to participate in homestay tourism, these criteria must be based on 5 conditions: convenient access to the house, full amenities for tourists such as bedrooms, toilets, the family has no history of crime, does not have social diseases that can spread to the community, and meets high standards of environmental hygiene.

3) Improve competitiveness in marine tourism business

To attract more tourists to Tan Thanh beach, local authorities need to issue planning policies for tourist areas/spots as follows:

- Building infrastructure, promotion policies... in Tan Thanh and Go Cong coastal tourist areas. Tourism businesses in Tien Giang need to closely coordinate with other businesses and localities to exploit cultural elements imbued with national identity, harmoniously coordinate between types of coastal ecosystems, and create unique and diverse tourism products.

- It is necessary to make the most of human tourism resources to develop cultural ecotourism. Encourage tourism businesses to choose outstanding local cultural content with the active participation of the community.

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