Overview of Tourism Activities in Hai Phong

comfortable for tourists. Promotion work is still limited, in fact when contacted and asked, many Japanese people said that they only know Vietnam through images of war or through some culinary and cultural products, many people do not know that Hanoi is the capital of Vietnam.

The situation of soliciting customers, begging, and overcharging customers still exists, damaging the image of Vietnamese tourism in the eyes of Japanese tourists.

This is a reality that our country's tourism industry has been trying to overcome to create better quality of customer service, especially when Vietnam has joined the World Trade Organization (WTO). There are many opportunities to increase international visitors, but the challenges are also great, requiring Vietnam's tourism to be very sensitive, effectively exploit available resources, mobilize all internal and external resources to make Vietnam's tourism industry develop further, on par with other countries in the region.

1.4. CONCLUSION

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The Japanese tourist market is considered one of the largest markets in the world with the number of foreign tourists in recent years reaching 18 million visitors/year. Through chapter 1, I would like to provide some more information about the Japanese tourist market so that we, the tourism workers, have a more general view of Japanese tourists, a country with many cultural similarities with Vietnam and many cooperative relationships in all fields including tourism. The Japanese tourist market is a key and potential tourist market of Vietnam's tourism industry in general and Hai Phong tourism in particular. Faced with a reality of exploitation with many difficult problems about this market, the Vietnamese tourism industry will have timely solutions to effectively exploit this potential source of tourists.

CHAPTER 2:

UNDERSTANDING THE JAPANESE TOURIST MARKET IN HAI PHONG

2.1. OVERVIEW OF TOURISM ACTIVITIES IN HAI PHONG

2.1.1. General policy of Hai Phong tourism

Hai Phong is one of the major tourist centers of the country today. In recent years, Hai Phong has always been an ideal destination for domestic and foreign tourists to have the opportunity to explore the unique cultural values of the city. To create this, Hai Phong tourism industry has had policies to bring the city's tourism industry to new heights. The first policy that Hai Phong tourism industry focuses on promoting is diversifying tourism products, always seeking to create new tourism products while constantly improving the quality of tourism products.

Hai Phong has a rich and diverse tourism resource base, including both natural and human tourism resources. However, the tourism products created have not yet met the needs and tastes of tourists, especially international tourists. In recent years, Hai Phong tourism has had very few programs for tourists to choose from, mainly revolving around tourism programs that are the city's strengths, such as sea tourism. The rate of visitors returning to Hai Phong is low, the length of stay of tourists in Hai Phong is at most 1-2 days, and they do not even stay overnight in the tour programs offered by Hai Phong.

Currently, travel agencies have focused on exploiting some typical routes of the city located in the inner city such as: Flower shop, Kenh communal house, Hang pagoda, Opera House and City Museum, flower garden strip in the city center. However, at these tourist attractions, the roads are not wide, inconvenient due to traffic separation, and the public hygiene situation is not guaranteed, causing

greatly reducing the city's attractiveness to international visitors, including Japanese tourists.

With the goal of developing Hai Phong tourism into a key economic sector, in addition to overcoming the above limitations, Hai Phong tourism must diversify tourism types, exploit typical tourism potentials in localities in the city, and build new attractive tourism programs to attract tourists to Hai Phong, especially international tourists.

Based on available tourism resources, the Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism of Hai Phong has built new tours and routes, creating unique tourism products with Hai Phong's own identity to attract tourists and give tourists many choices when coming to Hai Phong.

In addition to the sea tours that are the strength of the region, Hai Phong tourism industry has paid attention to developing rural cultural - ecological tours. This is also a relatively new tourism product with a very unique style of Hai Phong. This new product has attracted many tourists who want to learn about the customs and culture of Hai Phong. Hai Phong tourism industry has fully exploited the available resources in the countryside, and with the creativity of continuous learning, Hai Phong tourism has launched new tourism programs, giving tourists many interesting choices.

Hai Phong Department of Tourism has tested rural sightseeing tours, rural cultural and ecological tours, city tours and bicycle tours that are very popular with domestic and foreign tourists. Especially bicycle tours, because they are suitable for Hai Phong traffic, good for tourists' health and at the same time can both travel and explore the Vietnamese countryside. With these tours, tourists can cycle to the countryside of Hai Phong such as Kien Thuy, Tien Lang, Vinh Bao... while traveling and sightseeing the Vietnamese countryside, while learning about the culture, customs and cuisine of the Vietnamese countryside. In particular, this is a very popular type of tourism.

Good for health and suitable for men or young people who like to freely learn about Vietnamese culture.

Hai Phong is also home to a large number of festivals, including many large national festivals such as the Buffalo Fighting Festival held in Do Son, recognized as one of the 15 unique national festivals held on the 9th day of the 8th lunar month every year. This festival attracts many visitors, including international visitors. Because this is a festival with cultural characteristics of the people of Hai Phong coastal area.

Currently, there are many festivals in Hai Phong that have not been fully exploited to serve tourism, such as the Trang Trinh - Nguyen Binh Khiem Temple Festival in Ly Hoc Commune, Vinh Bao District. The festival commemorates the great tree of Vietnamese culture in the 18th century and is held annually from the 25th to the 28th of the 11th lunar month. The festival commemorates the cultural celebrity who is not yet well known to international tourists and does not have any special programs during the festival. Recognizing the importance of festivals for tourism development, the Hai Phong Department of Tourism has been restoring and bringing festivals into service for the city's tourism activities.

The city’s tourism industry has incorporated festivals into the city’s cultural tour programs so that visitors have more opportunities to learn about the culture of Hai Phong’s coastal region. For example, along with organizing the tourism event “Do Son, the sea calls” , the Hai Phong Tourism Department has combined the Do Son Buffalo Fighting Festival; combined the Cat Ba Fishing Village Festival with Cat Ba tourism activities…

In addition to festivals, Hai Phong Department of Tourism also exploits traditional craft villages in areas with historical and cultural relics to include in tourism programs. For example, in the rural cultural tour in Vinh Bao, in addition to seeing historical and cultural relics such as Trang Temple, ancient temples and pagodas, tourists can also learn about and shop in the villages.

Crafts such as: Dong Minh statue carving village, Nhan Hoa water puppetry, Bao Ha dry puppetry...

In addition to the long-standing cultural and historical values, the city also has modern constructions that have been put into operation to build many tourism programs for sightseeing, learning, exchanging experiences, field surveys, and economic exchanges such as industrial parks, Nomura and Dinh Vu export processing zones, Hai Phong port, famous shipyards in Hai Phong... because Hai Phong city is a major economic center of the country, an economic axis in the Northern economic growth triangle: Hanoi - Hai Phong - Quang Ninh. These tour programs, Hai Phong tourism industry mainly meets the needs of business travelers or students who want to learn about the city's development or want to find an investment environment in the city.

At historical and cultural sites, visitors will discover knowledge about cultural history and architecture. In addition, Hai Phong Tourism Department has exploited cultural and artistic forms in tourist attractions so that visitors can see the spiritual culture of coastal people. For example, when visitors visit Hang Kenh communal house, they will enjoy excerpts of Cheo or smooth and profound Ca Tru melodies.

In addition, the infrastructure serving tourism is constantly being improved. In the process of developing Hai Phong tourism today, the works serving tourism are always properly invested in both infrastructure and related value-added services, ensuring the best service for tourists, especially the most demanding tourists such as Japanese tourists. At major tourist destinations in Hai Phong such as Do Son and Cat Ba tourist areas, the technical infrastructure is constantly developing.

In Do Son, a series of investment projects and construction of hotels and entertainment areas have been and are being started. Besides the Casino, Do Son has put into operation the Do Son golf course and is building entertainment centers on reclaimed land. Public works

also upgraded with good quality, maintaining general hygiene, 4-star hotels have been built and put into use. All to meet the needs of international tourists.

In Cat Ba, the Cat Ba Amatina project has been approved by the city to be implemented with the goal of building Cat Ba into an international-class eco-tourism and resort center in the North. This is a project that integrates many high-end areas such as: luxury resort villa complex, 5-star hotel, marina, international conference center, floating house area and entertainment areas.

Thus, the Cat Ba Amatina project is implemented with good infrastructure, thoughtful tourism services will meet the needs and expectations of many tourists. At the same time, with the reputation of the world biosphere reserve, Cat Ba will be an ideal destination for tourists to visit and relax.

At tourist destinations, in addition to organizing cultural events and festivals, Hai Phong Department of Tourism advocates coordinating with other sectors to expand and diversify the contents of tourism programs and tourist destinations such as organizing more trade fairs and exhibitions, allowing tourists to both visit and shop, maximally meeting the needs of tourists, while also enriching and creating attractiveness for tourism programs as well as tourist destinations.

For example, during the recent “Do Son Sea Calls” tourism week, the Hai Phong Department of Tourism combined the Buffalo Fighting Festival and the Trade Fair to attract many domestic and foreign tourists. This type of cultural and shopping tourism is very popular with Japanese tourists. This is considered one of the policies to diversify local tourism products.

The second policy that the city's tourism industry focuses on promoting is: restoring and developing traditional local cultural products.

Currently, in parallel with diversifying tourism products, improving product quality and creating new products, restoring and developing local and ethnic cultural products, and types of cultural and artistic forms are also being promoted.

Typical arts of the city are being exploited and put into tourism development such as: Cheo art, Hat Van, Ca Tru, folk dance art, dry puppetry, water puppetry... These art forms are performed in combination in cultural tours, on the one hand meeting the needs of tourists to learn and explore the indigenous culture of the tourist destination, on the other hand preserving, conserving and developing folk cultural forms that are gradually fading away.

Historical and cultural relics in the city are always restored and preserved. For example, Tuong Long tower in Do Son is an ancient relic that has existed for thousands of years, carrying many cultural values. The city is restoring and embellishing it on the remaining foundation of the ancient tower that was discovered not long ago.

Regarding tourist souvenir products, there are still no typical products of Hai Phong to bring to the market to sell to tourists. On the souvenir stalls today, there are mainly familiar souvenir products, similar to those sold in mass as other tourist destinations in other localities. This is a weakness of the tourism industry of the whole country in general and Hai Phong is no exception.

In Hai Phong, there are only a few products such as bamboo paintings, souvenirs made from sea shells, pearl or sea snail jewelry, while in Hai Phong there are many unique traditional handicraft villages such as bronze casting villages.... However, these handicrafts are still monotonous in design, not showing the uniqueness of the locality.

Therefore, Hai Phong needs to have many policies to encourage and support the development of craft villages. Hai Phong needs to have projects to build centers to support the development and consumption of traditional craft village products, organize competitions to create designs for souvenir products typical of the city, and at the same time support and have preferential policies for artisans.

The third policy is: promote tourism promotion activities of Hai Phong.

This is an indispensable activity for the city's tourism development, so it is of special interest to the Department of Tourism as well as the city's leadership. Realizing the importance of this activity, the Department of Tourism of Hai Phong city has coordinated with other agencies to organize many cultural and tourism events and respond to national promotional campaigns, implementing the proposed plans and achieving certain results.

Hai Phong is one of the major tourist centers of the country, a city with available tourism potential, but for that potential to be developed, for tourists to feel and bring economic efficiency to the city, tourism promotion is of special importance. These will be activities to bring the image of Hai Phong to domestic and international friends.

Hai Phong Department of Tourism has coordinated with districts, towns and cities with potential for tourism development to successfully organize traditional festivals and cultural events. Through this, tourists will know more about Hai Phong through the impression of festivals and cultural events. The Department has coordinated with many sectors and mobilized businesses to participate in promoting Hai Phong tourism activities on the spot.

For example, coordinating with Hai Phong Radio and Television to produce a documentary film about Hai Phong tourism, coordinating with Hai Phong Newspaper to regularly report and publish reports on the city's tourism events and tourist attractions. The Department has also joined the city in successfully organizing cultural activities, culinary culture weeks to celebrate major cultural events such as the liberation of Hai Phong, the international green week exhibition... coordinating with Vietnam Book Joint Stock Companies to publish the book "Hai Phong welcomes tourists" in both English and Vietnamese to make it easier for tourists to access the city's tourism information.

At the same time, Hai Phong Department of Tourism also built detailed Hai Phong tourism websites and established Hai Phong tourism association to create

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