Chapter 3: THE REAL STATE OF DONG ANH’S CULTURAL
3.7. Assessing strengths and weaknesses, opportunities and challenges
• Strengths
+ Tourism has been identified as the key product - the main driving force for the socio-economic development of the locality.
+ The resources of humanity tourism in the area are abundant and diverse.
+ The activeness of the private sector in the locality has made significant progress in exploiting the advantages of cultural tourism in this district.
• Weaknesses
+ The economic effectiveness of the cultural tourism in this area is still limited; the stay of tourists to the relics in the district is quite short; and the turnover from from the cultural tourism activities here is rather low.
+ The products of the cultural tourism are not really plentiful and diverse.
+ The planning and exploitation of cultural tourism resources are still limited. The managerial and professional skills of the employees in the cultural tourism here are limited and unequal.
+ The advertisement for the cultural tourism destinations is limited.
+ The market research and tourism promotion of tourist agencies and
tourism companies haven’t been properly focused.
+ The local branches at different levels and local tourism companies are not closely collaborated and linked; the linkage of the cultural tourism in Dong Anh with the cultural spaces, relics, festivals and trading villages in Hanoi and in the surrounding areas is not close. Therefore, the number of travel tours is quite limited as compared to the potentials of the cultural tourism in the area.
• Opportunities
+ Tourism is one of the prioritized fields in the strategy for the socio- economic development of the locality. The tourism and trade development project of Dong Anh from 2011 to 2020 includes the nine major programs of the District Party Committee in the 2011-2015 term. When implemented, this project will create a chain of outstanding cultural tourism products and the effectiveness of the cultural tourism activities in Dong Anh will be improved.
+ In the near future, the integration and direct connection to the central area of Hanoi will create many opportunities for the cultural tourism development in Dong Anh. This will be a new destination for cultural tourism. The cultural tourism in Dong Anh will get access to potential markets (domestic and international) and take advantage of the material and technical basis of modern tourism and the high-quality human resources of tourism in Hanoi center in order to develop the cultural tourism in Dong Anh.
• Challenges
+ The biggest challenge to the cultural tourism in Dong Anh is to create the tourism products of cultural values in association with the unique cultural values of the district. There is a lack of great entertainment centers which help attract tourists to the area. The quality of human resources in the district has not
met the requirements of the local tourism development.
+ There is a fierce competition in terms of products and service quality with the center of Hanoi and the surrounding areas.
Through the assessment of the cultural tourism situation as well as the evaluation of the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and challenges, the author raise a question: What are the impications and specific solutions to optimally exploit the advantages of cultural tourism resources for the development of sustainable tourism and create a breakthrough in the socio-economic development of this area.
Summary of chapter 3
In Chapter 3, the author clarifies some problems of the cultural tourism in Dong Anh such as the tourism organizations and management, the technical and material basis of tourism, the quality of human resources and the number of tourists in some cultural tourist destinations in Dong Anh.
In addition, we also mention some achievements in the cultural tourism development in the area. They are the interest, the guidance and the coordination of the local governments at all levels in the orientation of developing the tourism into the key economic sector in this district; the expansion of tourism companies;
and the increasing investment in infrastructure and modern techniques.
Therefore, the local cultural tourism has achieved certain development and the number of tourists to Dong Anh has been increasing. At the same time, the author has analyzed the cultural tourism situation in this area with some typical cultural tourism products such as the travel tours the historical and cultural relics, the festivals of Co Loa, the trading villages of Van Ha and the water puppetry ward of Dao Thuc.
However, in the cultural tourism development in Dong Anh, the potentials and the advantages of humanity tourism resources haven’t been effectively exploited. The number of tourists to the cultural tourist destinations in Dong Anh increases every year, but their spending is rather low and their stay at these cultural tourist destination is quite short. Therefore, the revenues from the cultural tourism activities in the district is still low.
Moreover, in this chapter, the author has analyzed the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and challenges to the cultural tourism development in this district so that some questions for the cultural tourism in Dong Anh are raised the practical basis for the direction and solutions to optimally exploiting the potential advantages of the cultural tourism resources in support of the sustainable tourism development and the breakthough to the socio-economic development in Dong Anh.