Can Tho welcomes 3.7 million tourists

The municipal authorities attributed the results to the city’s success in building the city to become the destination of domestic and foreign tourists in recent years.
According to Tran Viet Phuong, Director of the municipal Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism, Can Tho has successfully introduced and promoted many attractive tourist products thanks to its advantages and strengths as the central city of the Mekong Delta and a transport hub of the region to other localities in the country.

Can Tho targets to welcome 32 million visitors, including 3.5 million international visitors, by 2020.

“Can Tho has abundant, favorable potential and conditions for tourism development like characteristically intertwined river and canal system, fertile soil, orchards, cultural festivals, cottage industries, valuable cultural and historical relics. As the habitat for various ethnic groups like Kinh, Hoa and Khmre, the city also has a very distinctive culture,” Phuong said.  
It has many famous suburban tourism villages such as My Khanh, Giao Duong, Vam Xang, Ba Cong, Muoi Cuong and Con Son in addition to popular tourist attractions like Ninh Kieu River Port, Cai Rang Floating Market, Phong Dien Floating Market and Bang Lang Stork Sanctuary. Moreover, the city also has a modern, synchronous transport infrastructure system and a wide range of tourism and amusement forms.
“Based on its existing potential and advantages, Can Tho City has formed four tourism types of tourism: River and garden ecotourism, traditional cultural tourism, community tourism, and MICE tourism,” he said.
Can Tho has so far approved a master plan for Can Tho City tourism development to 2020, with an eye to 2030, in which tourism will become the key economic sector of Can Tho City by 2020, earning it total revenue of VND12.1 trillion, an average increase of 16 percent per year.
According to the master plan, Can Tho targets to welcome 32 million visitors, including 3.5 million international visitors, up 10 per cent per year on average.
Phuong said that to meet the target, the city will focus on developing specific tourism types like MICE, ecological tourism, cultural tourism and home-stay to woo tourists, especially internationals.
Additionally, to effectively exploit local tourism resources, the city has actively supported districts to build tourism products; develop river-based tourism combined with cultural and historical discovery, handicraft village sightseeing; exploit cultural and historical relics and festivals; turn the Song Hau Farm and the Mekong Delta Rice Research Institute into tourist attractions; and combine agricultural activities to develop ecological tourism and homestay tourism in a bid to make the city’s tourism development effective and sustainable./.