Ponagar tower seen from Cai river, Nha Trang. (Photo: Tien Minh / VNA) Khanh Hoa has long been identified as one of the major island and service tourism centers of the country, a land with a long and unique history of marine culture and history of Vietnam. Many interesting landscapes, beautiful and natural beaches are evenly distributed in the three bays of Van Phong, Cam Ranh, Nha Trang and on the islands creating its own identity. Island Tourism , becoming a brand known to visitors from far and wide. However, Khanh Hoa also has the potential to build new and equally interesting tourism products, becoming “breakfast meals”, “snacks” for the whole vacation, tourist’s visit, Next to “main course” is island tourism. Potential for community tourism Not only has many famous sights about the sea and islands, Khanh Hoa is also a place to keep many long-standing cultural traditions, unique architectural works such as the legendary Ponagar Tower with a history of thousands of years, Dien ancient citadel Khanh, famous scientific research institutions such as: Institute of Oceanography, Pasteur Institute Nha Trang – associated with memorials about the life and career of scientist Alexandre Yersin. Khanh Hoa is a culturally diverse locality with many customs and folk festivals such as: The Fisherman Festival, the Thap Ba Festival, the Raglai’s Grave Festival has been recognized as an Intangible Heritage. National level… Rural and upland areas with ethnic minorities have been preserved, preserved and brought into play almost intact with traditional costumes, activities, culinary culture, festivals, music, folk songs, folk dance and the way of producing some handicrafts have created specific cultural values. In addition, the natural ecosystem of rivers, streams, rapids and lagoons creates an interesting and wild natural landscape. Mr. Tran Viet Trung – Director of Khanh Hoa Provincial Department of Tourism affirmed that the province has favorable conditions to develop tourism in association with the community – tourism is developed on the basis of cultural values. of the community, managed, exploited and benefited by the residential community. In recent years, Khanh Hoa tourism has developed quite strongly, the number of tourists and revenue increased quite high in the period 2016-2019 when the total number of guests staying was over 23 million, of which international tourists reached 9, 55 million turns. Tourism revenue in the period 2016-2019 of Khanh Hoa increased more than 26% per year. Particularly, 2019 is the “golden age” of Khanh Hoa tourism, tourism revenue reaches 27,100 billion VND, contributing to the total product in the province (GRDP) reached over 12%. However, according to estimates, Khanh Hoa only receives about 10,000 visitors / year from the exploitation of the community based tourism, revenue from services and community tourism is estimated at only 30 billion VND / year; attract not many labors in rural areas and villages to participate in tourism services in the community. Although any local government also highly values ​​the prospects and effectiveness of the community tourism , such as contributing to creating stable jobs for local workers and shifting leisure time to professions, opening up services for tourism development … but for a long time, districts, towns, cities the city has not had the orientation and proper investment to develop this field. It can be determined that the CBT in Khanh Hoa develops not commensurate with its potentials and advantages, lacks investment, and the tourism product is monotonous, and lacks really new and attractive products. Along with that is limited service quality, weak tourism infrastructure, insufficient and weak tourism human resources, coordination between levels, sectors and localities in tourism management and development. This area lacks coherence and uniformity; Awareness about community based tourism development is not high … Another important reason is that the investment attraction and financial support for the CBT are still limited, not meeting the requirements of this type of tourism development. New idea for community based tourism Currently, the number of tour operators in Khanh Hoa province taking visitors to the community tourism destinations is too small, only 4-5 businesses. Recently, Ms. Nguyen Thi Thu Huong, a tourist from Ward 8, Phu Nhuan District, Ho Chi Minh City, said: “My whole family has come to Nha Trang for a trip, the past few days have joined the tour to enjoy the bay. Nha Trang beach, mud bath, enjoying all kinds of fresh seafood My family wants to learn something more at sea, but I have not heard of, nor do I know a tourist destination associated with the community in the area. mountains for example. ” With the view of developing the community based tourism together with the protection of natural resources and the environment, conservation and promotion of national cultural values, Khanh Hoa is diversifying new tourism forms and products. to attract tourists and prolong the stay of tourists. The province promotes the values ​​of rural and mountainous areas, giving priority to ecotourism, history, traditional craft villages …; build a number of policies to support community tourism development in the province. Ms. Nguyen Thi Le Thanh – Deputy Director of Khanh Hoa Tourism Department said: “We are collecting opinions from agencies, units and individuals on the content to form a number of mechanisms and policies. support the development of community tourism in the province; conduct field surveys and collect opinions of local authorities on the construction of community tourism spots in the province. ” In the short term, Khanh Hoa tourism is expected to prioritize and focus on supporting investment and development in 4 localities: Ninh Hoa town, Dien Khanh district, two mountainous districts of Khanh Vinh and Khanh Son – places where tourist destinations are located. active community calendar. Thereby, the province hopes to improve its ability to attract and well serve the needs of tourists, create highlights, a number of pilot models of community tourism in the area in the period of 2021-2025. Hat-stacking profession in Khanh Hoa. (Source: Khanh Hoa Newspaper) The necessary policies in this plan are to support the construction and development of tourism products and services to attract the participation of the residential community. Some specific initial support items such as installation of signs, signposts to guide the way to community tourism attractions; renovate toilets, support equipment for homestay establishments to serve tourists; support male and female Raglai traditional costumes for the performing arts team in mountainous areas, support the entertainment team to promote and perform the Bai Hut performance of the local coastal area … In addition, Khanh Hoa also supports the training and fostering of knowledge and skills to serve tourists for individuals and households in the community to participate in providing tourism, relaxation and sightseeing services. It is expected that Khanh Hoa province will invest more than 13 billion VND from the state budget to implement these policies. According to the management representative’s assessment People’s Committee of Khanh Hoa province Some mountainous and coastal districts in the province have successfully built a number of community-based tourism models, but the spread is not high, not known by provincial tourists, mainly from visitors. neighboring districts. Every year, the People’s Committees of districts have not allocated a separate budget for tourism promotion and promotion, so the implementation of propaganda and promotion in the locality is still difficult. Therefore, the Provincial People’s Committee is considering a solution to support funding for each district to implement the above request. Khanh Hoa is already a destination for island tourism but as Mr. Nguyen Duc Chi – Chairman of Crystal Bay Group shares a destination with many different ecosystems that will provide visitors with different experiences, enrich their itinerary. It is also a way to create a special attraction, attracting tourists when coming to Khanh Hoa./.

The coral reefs in Con Dao waters have been recovered after the “catastrophe”. RECOVERY 7 TYPES OF MARRIES Con Dao sea area is considered to be the place with the highest marine biodiversity in Vietnam with coral reefs playing an important role. However, since 1997, the coral in Con Dao sea has developed slowly, in many places, the coral has died and bleached. Therefore, the Provincial People’s Committee “ordered” Con Dao National Park and Institute of Oceanography project “Selection of applied models of hard coral restoration in ramsar area of ​​Con Dao National Park”. Associate Professor – Dr. Vo Si Tuan, Former Director of Institute of Oceanography (Nha Trang City, Khanh Hoa Province) – project manager, said that the coral reef restoration was done in 3 areas: Dat Doc, Southwest of Hon Tai (recovered on natural bottoms) and Bai Cat (restored on artificial bottoms). Rehabilitation activities include: assessment of current conditions, removal and fixation of corals, and monitoring of survival and growth (conducted 5 turns over a 2 year period). Accordingly, there are 7 types of corals belonging to 3 varieties: Acopora, Montipora and Pocillopora selected to be restored in the waters of Con Dao. In addition, some types with beautiful shapes and colors such as Echinophyllia echinoporoides, Oxypora glabra, Echinophyllia cehinoporoides were also tested to create diverse habitats for ecotourism. In the coral restoration area on the artificial bottom, the scientists split the pieces and then fixed the corals to 150 dome-shaped concrete tanks. In areas with natural bottoms to ensure good coral growth, scientists make direct fixings on dead corals by wire or drawstring. To make sure, the group used a 35cm iron pole or 10cm steel nail mounted on the dead coral foundation as a support. Talking about the project implementation process, Associate Professor, Dr. Vo Si Tuan said that the project team of up to 20 people (including scientists from Nha Trang, Con Dao National Park staff and fishermen) is not concerned. day and night, wind waves to work both on the sea and under the ocean. In particular, the hardest thing is to bring 150 dome-shaped concrete tanks of 100x60cm size to the sea. After being manufactured in Con Dao, these 150 tanks were implemented by the team implementing the project to rent a crane to Ben Dam port. From here, it takes 25 more boat trips to transport these concrete tanks to Hon Bay Canh. Dozens of healthy fishermen were mobilized to bring the concrete tub to Cat Lon beach (Hon Bay Canh) and put it in the right position (distance from 0.5-1m). According to Mr. Tran Dinh Hue, Deputy Director of Con Dao National Park, the agency in charge of the project, said that he has accompanied the scientists of the Institute of Oceanography during 2 years of implementing the project. The project is carried out entirely on the sea, under the ocean, so it is very difficult, depends a lot on weather factors. “Sometimes, when we are implementing the work, the weather is unfavorable, the waves are strong, the wind is strong, we have to stay 10 days before we can continue to deploy”, Mr. Hue said. SIGNIFICANT IMPROVEMENT After 2 years (from October 2018 to September 2020), implementing an experimental coral restoration in Con Dao waters showed that corals have recovered well. Specifically, according to a detailed assessment of the current status of the bottom of the coral restoration area in September 2020, it shows that the amount of coral has been significantly improved through the coverage data of living corals. Accordingly, in Bai Cat Lon area, the coverage of hard corals varies from 0-13.1%. Hon Tai area The coverage of hard corals increased from 3.8% to 13.1%. Similarly for the Dat Doc area the coverage of hard corals increased from 0.6% to 10%. Thus, after 2 years of restoring corals, coverage of average hard corals at the three recovery points increased from 1.5 to 12% with the number of more than 4,400 coral groups restored on the natural bottom and 1,600 coral groups have been restored on the man-made reef. Mr. Nguyen Cong Danh, Director of the Department of Science and Technology, said the project “Selecting an application model for recovery of hard corals in the ramsar area of ​​Con Dao National Park” is an experimental project of great significance to the province and country. In particular, coral rehabilitation and development for the Con Dao ramsar area has achieved the main goal of improving coral reefs by increasing coral cover, increasing the cost of sustainable attachment for corals. restore and create a stable environment for the development of the coral reef biomes. From there, contributing to biodiversity conservation and restoration of natural resources, improving the quality of the ecosystem.