Awaken

For a long time, starting from the UNESCO recognition of Hoi An and My Son as world heritage sites (in 1999), although Quang Nam has at times become one of the world's tourist centers, the western tourism space of the province has not been exploited.

The geographical distance between the mountainous localities and the heritage sites of Hoi An and My Son is less than 2 hours by crow’s flight. The natural values, landscapes, history, and indigenous culture are considered unique and special.

However, for many years, this space has only served a small group of local tourists in the region and a small group of international tourists with the need to explore and be free. The western landscape has not really become a major tourist destination that cannot be missed in the travel itinerary in the Central region of most travel agencies.

In the past, there were some tourism businesses investing in this area. However, due to difficult conditions, many obstacles related to climate change, many obstacles in mountainous transportation and small-scale tourist attraction activities, it is difficult to maintain regular tourism activities.

Recently, Dong Giang Heaven Gate was pioneered by a large enterprise, opening a new tourist route for the area, initially opening up the tourist route in the west of Quang Nam. And this destination is like a main stop on the route "Hoi An - My Son - Dong Giang Heaven Gate" - this is a good sign to attract more businesses to believe in investing and exploiting tourism in this area.

Looking Deep into the Challenge

However, from the business perspective, investing in mountainous areas has certain obstacles. If there are not enough strong resources, it will "fail halfway". On the other hand, if any business overcomes these barriers, it will create a huge competitive advantage, without competitors, and with a large business space.

I think, after the pandemic, Quang Nam is returning to strong tourism development momentum. In 2024, Quang Nam tourism marked many impressive achievements in the number of international and domestic visitors, recognized by many domestic and international tourism media awards. In particular, Quang Nam also carried out many expanded cooperation and linkages with provinces and cities in the country and new international markets in the Asian region such as India, Korea, Japan, Thailand, Indonesia, etc.

Continuing to mobilize social resources to develop tourism in western Quang Nam is necessary. It needs to be done more quickly and decisively to form tourism products here.

Looking deeper, there are still many challenges and difficulties in the mountainous areas of Quang Nam. From traffic conditions, connecting routes from major tourist centers in the region such as Hoi An, My Son, or Da Nang with winding mountain roads, hindering travel during the rainy season, storms and floods; conditions for tourism service facilities are not many and complete, there is still a shortage of skilled tourism personnel...

These are the big challenges of the mountainous localities of Quang Nam. However, looking at the positive side, if we refer to other mountainous localities such as Sa Pa, Ha Giang... we can see that they are gradually improving and adapting to climate change... to attract tourists. There are localities that attract tourists exceptionally thanks to similar values ​​like the mountainous areas of Quang Nam.

Knock on doors and place investment orders

To develop tourism in the mountainous areas of Quang Nam, from the perspective of a tourism business, I think it is necessary to build a development policy, attract long-term investment in the mountainous areas, and exploit social resources.

The government and tourism policy makers of Quang Nam need to study the spatial planning for tourism development and widely promulgate policies to attract various social resources, both domestic and international, calling on domestic and foreign businesses and corporations to pay attention to researching and investing in this area.

The locality needs to boldly knock on doors and place orders with domestic and international corporations interested in investing in this potential area. The investment content must be groundbreaking, including building a highway from the south to the west, even investing in tourist railways and cable cars using advanced, modern technology.

This can be referred to the recent tourist railway in Busan, Korea. The railway is like a special experiential tourism product and attracts tourists as soon as it is put into operation. It is also necessary to ensure that the investment project is lifelong and permanent so that businesses can confidently commit to allocating long-term resources with a long-term strategy.

It is necessary to regularly organize seminars to call for tourism investment in major cities such as Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City, or investment forums in countries in the region. It is necessary to develop public-private partnership policies in many areas that the state cannot fully undertake at a time when resources are limited and dispersed; especially in the context of merging administrative boundaries between localities in the coming time.

In the short term, it is necessary to develop tourism products suitable for current road and traffic conditions in mountainous areas, such as international marathon tourism, trail races, motorbike and motorcycle experiences, off-road vehicle competitions, caravans, adventure tourism experiences, etc.

Tourism promotion work also has many limitations. Quang Nam government needs to invest a certain budget, large enough for tourism promotion work. A destination with many difficulties, the level of investment to ensure initial start-up activities is very necessary. Public-private partnerships also need to be promoted to ensure attracting social resources.

It is necessary to build a convincing financial package, with special incentives for pioneering businesses to build tourism service facilities, accommodation, and homestays in mountainous areas.

“Tomorrow starts today”, so there is no delay if we do not start from promoting short-term contents “taking short-term to feed long-term” more drastically and consistently. Quang Nam mountainous tourism will become a tourist destination sooner or later on the international tourism map, depending on the implementation and deployment of short-term plans at this time.