What to do to turn Con Son - Kiep Bac relic site into a national tourist area?

Investment priority

Last weekend, while taking her son to visit Con Son Pagoda, Ms. Tran Thi Kim Oanh (Hai Phong City) was surprised when walking on the road leading to the relic. “Previously, the road was narrow and often congested during the festival season. Now the road has been paved with asphalt and widened, contributing to making the relic landscape more spacious and beautiful,” Ms. Oanh said.

To promote the potential for development into a national tourist area, many projects have been implemented at both Con Son and Kiep Bac relics. One of them is the Project to build a wharf, Thuong River market, festival grounds and parking lot in front of Kiep Bac Temple. Dr. Le Duy Manh, Deputy Head of the Con Son - Kiep Bac Relic Management Board, said that the project area covers an area of ​​6 hectares in front of the left dike of Thuong River, with a total estimated investment of 98 billion VND. The project will create a bustling scene of boats on the wharf and under the boat, meeting the tourism needs of visitors.

In addition, the Mam Xoi Mountain Renovation and Restoration Project; the construction of Tran Hung Dao Museum; the Vien Lang project; the restoration and embellishment of Thanh Hu Temple; the restoration of Con Son Stream... are also about to be implemented simultaneously.

Identified as a potential location for national tourism development, Con Son - Kiep Bac is on the list of priority investment projects for the 2021-2030 period. In addition, this place also receives investment in digital transformation; training and fostering human resources; preserving and promoting the value of resources, protecting the environment... The projects are all important and urgent to create a breakthrough for tourism development.

Develop new services

One of the important tasks to build Con Son - Kiep Bac into a national tourist area is to build new tourism products and services.

According to the leader of the Con Son - Kiep Bac relic management board, in the immediate future, the Kiep Bac temple area can attract investment packages in the form of construction - business - transfer contracts to build a separate route in the area, connecting Kiep Bac - Con Son. The means of transportation are electric cars or horse-drawn carriages. On both sides of the road, it is possible to plan and arrange suitable resting areas and souvenir shops to satisfy the entertainment and shopping needs of tourists. In the Kiep Bac temple area, a fleet of tourist boats and ships will be built on the Luc Dau river. Visitors can enjoy the scenery on the river, watch excerpts about the Tran Dynasty's kings and ministers fighting against the enemy, experience unique folk cultural activities... In the Con Son area, camping activities can be organized around the lake on weekends. Research on special souvenir products from traditional craft villages of Hai Duong, dishes with unique characteristics of the relic site. With its natural tourism potential and unique cultural values, in the coming time, Con Son - Kiep Bac relic site can provide more eco-tourism products such as sightseeing, learning about the forest ecosystem, mountain climbing, and camping.

To do that, a large amount of investment capital is needed, mobilized from many different sources such as the state budget (both central and local), socialized sources, especially investment from enterprises. To ensure attracting investment resources, Hai Duong considers having specific mechanisms and policies, applied specifically to the relic site to encourage domestic and foreign economic sectors to invest and develop products and items in the tourist area.

According to Ms. Hoang Thi Thuy, Director of Dong Chay Viet International Travel Company (Hai Duong City), the meditation and resort tourism service models in Bai Dinh (Ninh Binh), Tam Chuc (Ha Nam) attract many tourists. One of the attractive factors is the synchronous facilities with beautiful resorts, services equivalent to 3-star hotels such as buffet breakfast, daily salt foot bath... In Hai Duong, the facilities such as restaurants, hotels... are not enough to develop the above services. The province can research and develop meditation and resort tourism as Ninh Binh and Ha Nam provinces have done.

Vice Chairman of the Provincial People's Committee Nguyen Minh Hung affirmed that Hai Duong always pays attention to investing to make tourism an important economic sector, contributing positively to the socio-economic development of the province. To achieve the goal of becoming a national tourist area, the Hai Duong Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism needs to review the criteria, compare with the reality of the Con Son-Kiep Bac relic site to see which criteria it has met and which criteria are not suitable. From there, a specific plan is proposed, clearly assigning responsibilities to each person and each department.