Sources of Tourist Information About Kon Tum City for Visitors 40‌

40 Results of processing domestic and international visitor survey forms

2.5. Strengths and weaknesses in tourism development in Kon Tum city Strengths

Kon Tum City is the economic-political-social center of Kon Tum Province. Over the years, the city has always received attention and investment to build a clean-beautiful-civilized urban appearance.

With a diverse terrain, the inner city of Kon Tum is a basin, slightly sunken, quite flat; the suburbs are mountainous terrain... creating many attractive landscapes with rivers, mountains, and small waterfalls. These are especially valuable and different resources to develop specific tourism products such as: sightseeing, resort, mountain climbing, adventure.

Kon Tum is home to about 20 ethnic groups, each with different cultural heritage values ​​that have created the most unique cultural treasure in the country. That is the "Central Highlands Gong Cultural Space " - a masterpiece and intangible cultural heritage of humanity; unique traditional architectural values ​​such as: communal houses, Dai houses, tomb houses...; unique traditional festivals (Gong festival, Abandoning Graves festival, dugout canoe racing festival on Dak Bla river, water drop worshiping ceremony of the Bahnar people...); folk cultural values, oral epics, unique ethnic musical instruments... These are truly special resource values ​​of Kon Tum, the difference compared to other regions to exploit and build tourism products with their own brands.

The coexistence of many religions combined with cultural diversity has created a number of architectural works that are not only valuable in terms of religion and history but also have high aesthetic value such as: Kon Tum Wooden Church - this unique work is built entirely of wood, with classical Roman architecture combined with the traditional stilt house architecture of the Bahnar people; Kon Tum Bishop's Palace - a Western architectural work combined with traditional indigenous architecture, the highlight of the seminary is the traditional house, which can be considered a small museum of household items, farming tools, cultural objects of indigenous peoples living in the area, meticulously carved in wood, very unique....

With a particularly important military position, during the resistance wars, the Central Highlands was chosen as a strategic area, the starting point of the General Offensive to liberate the South in 1975... Therefore, in Kon Tum city today, there are still many historical revolutionary relics associated with the tradition of the nation's struggle to defend the country (Kon Tum Prison, Trung Tin base relic...). These are distinct resource values ​​to exploit to build tourism products associated with the tradition of patriotism, with the brave revolutionary spirit of generations of fathers and grandfathers...

Weaknesses

The city is located far from the country's major tourist centers and key tourist markets (Ho Chi Minh City, Hanoi, Hue, Da Nang...), so its attractiveness to tourists is limited due to difficult roads.

The terrain is diverse and complex, with many mountain passes, dangerous waterfalls and rapids... making travel very difficult and dangerous, especially in the rainy season, causing significant obstacles to tourism activities.

The river system is short and steep, the climate is divided into two distinct seasons (rainy season and dry season), so the flow of the streams is unstable (dry season causes water shortage, rainy season easily causes floods, landslides...). This disadvantage makes tourism activities difficult.

Socio-economic conditions are still difficult and underdeveloped; people's material and spiritual life is still low. Infrastructure is not really synchronous; roads to villages are quite small and not concreted; the electricity system in suburban areas is quite weak at night... The city only has a few entertainment venues, with standard quality, mainly serving the needs of local people, not yet meeting the needs of tourists.

As an area with many ethnic groups living, farming traditions, free migration, shifting cultivation, low education level, in the ethnic villages around the city, there are still many people who do not know Kinh, causing difficulties in communication. Long-standing customs, difficult to change..., greatly affect the protection of resources and environment.

environment in general and tourism resources and environment in particular such as shifting cultivation, deforestation for farming...

The development of economic sectors, especially the development of hydroelectric systems, has seriously affected the flows and landscapes of waterfalls.

Due to the need to make a living, some indigenous cultural values ​​are being lost, and being influenced by other cultures. Some purely Kon Tum rituals are being commercialized to serve at some tourist attractions (tourists pay and the locals reenact them), for example: gong performances, Bahnar weddings... Intangible culture such as festivals: water trough worship, village taboos are at risk of being lost because many villages no longer have traditional rituals.

The political security situation, social order and safety in Kon Tum are basically stable, but not really solid, significantly affecting tourism activities in general and attracting investment to develop tourism in the area in particular. People rarely go out at night. Restaurants and cafes do not open after 10pm, so in Kon Tum city there is almost no night market, no late-night dining style like many places.

According to the survey results of local communities participating in tourism activities about the biggest difficulties in the current local tourism exploitation process, the author found that: 7/20 votes chose capital issues, 3/20 votes chose policy issues, 5/20 votes chose transportation issues, 3/20 votes chose tourism operations issues and 2/20 votes chose other issues (level of socio-economic development: education, income...)... From this result, it can be seen that, from the perspective of the people, capital and transportation issues need to be given top priority in the coming time. When conducting in-depth interviews with the local community, city residents said that: there must be money to invest in infrastructure, build entertainment areas... Besides, the city government needs to invest in traffic issues because in addition to the roads in the central area being quite nice, some areas in Thang Loi and Ngo May wards have many potholes, and when it rains, the roads are flooded, making travel difficult....

10%

15%

35%

25%

15%

Capital

Policy

Transportation

Other tourism services

Chart 2.10. Assessment of difficulties in tourism development activities in Kon Tum city by local communities 41

2.6. Opportunities and challenges in developing tourism in Kon Tum city Opportunities

State management agencies for tourism in cities and provinces are increasingly improving their organizational structure and functions, effectively performing their advisory functions in managing and developing tourism in each locality.

Tourists to Kon Tum increase every year, specifically according to 2014 data, the number of tourists increased by 7.9% compared to 2013, reaching 91.3% of the plan.

41 Results of processing survey forms of local communities participating in tourism activities (total 20 forms)