Making Gia Lai tourism a new growth pillar

After the merger, Gia Lai province quickly realized its strategic development vision, in which tourism was identified as one of the five key economic pillars for the 2025-2030 period.

The beauty of Chu Dang Ya volcano attracts many tourists.

With the unique terrain advantage from the Central Highlands to the blue coastal sea, the process of shaping the inter-regional tourism brand is being implemented vigorously and comprehensively, bringing initial positive signals. The close coordination between the government, businesses and people is creating a new momentum to make Gia Lai become a key tourism center of the region.

From the great forest to the blue sea: Unlocking potential, connecting identity

July 1st marked a major turning point when Gia Lai province officially merged with Binh Dinh province, forming a new administrative- economic entity, bearing the mark of "the quintessence of the great forest and the blue sea converging". This is not simply a restructuring of administrative boundaries but also a unique opportunity to create a sustainable development strategy, in which tourism is identified as the main growth pillar.

Immediately after the merger, the province organized the “Essence of the Great Forest - Convergence of the Blue Sea” Festival as a large-scale cultural-tourism event to convey the message of East-West connection, harmonizing the identity of the Central Highlands and the central coast. This event was not only an impressive “opening” but also opened up a large, diverse and rich tourism space in terms of products, services and experiences.

Gong performance on Quy Nhon beach.

Young artist Rcom Bus, from Pleiku ward, performed gongs for the first time on the Quy Nhon beach, could not hide his emotions: "I found the festival very diverse and interesting when joining in the jubilant festival rhythm because we are from the mountainous Gia Lai side, and here is the coastal Gia Lai side, so I found the performance more lively and unique."

The combination of gongs of the great forest and traditional martial arts of the sea, grilled chicken-com lam with tuna… is a vivid proof of a tourism development strategy based on identity, thereby forming unique and distinct cultural-ecological-historical-sea tourism products.

Faced with the wide open space for tourism development, travel businesses have quickly caught up with the new trend.

Ms. Hoang Thi Thu Sen, Director of Vietravel Binh Dinh branch, said that the company has opened a representative office in Pleiku and started designing "up the mountain - down the sea" tourism products, taking advantage of the winter-west Truong Son climate to create year-round experience itineraries.

“We can completely build new products to bring visitors here. Between the sea and the forest, we will build cultural-historical products. Destinations in Gia Lai need to be invested more heavily. For example, the road to Chu Dang Ya volcano can only go one way and needs to be expanded to serve large tourist vehicles. We will focus on building unique cultural-historical tourism products,” Ms. Sen shared.

Gia Lai designs "up the mountains - down to the sea" tourism products to attract tourists.

For businesses, the merger of Gia Lai and Binh Dinh is not only a geographical restructuring but more importantly, it creates conditions for restructuring tourism development thinking.

Mr. Nguyen Tan Thanh, Chairman of the Gia Lai Tourism Association (formerly) commented: “The merger helps the market expand year-round. When becoming a province, the low tourism months of the old Binh Dinh coincide with the high tourism months of the old Gia Lai and vice versa, so it can welcome visitors all year round. Take one journey but experience two typical ecosystems, creating a variety of tourism products.”

In fact, businesses are actively surveying, connecting tours and investing in infrastructure and technology to serve tourism. The strong participation of businesses is contributing to the formation of inter-regional and interconnected tourism chains, making the most of resource advantages and creating competition in service quality.

Towards becoming the center of eco-tourism and culture of the Central Highlands and Central Coast

Less than 3 months after the merger, Gia Lai has shown its determination in action: from organizing large-scale cultural events, encouraging businesses to survey tours, supporting people to improve the community tourism model, to planning a systematic and long-term development strategy. These steps not only demonstrate the proactive and creative spirit of the provincial leaders but also clearly reflect the tourism development orientation in accordance with Resolution No. 08-NQ/TW of the Politburo on developing tourism into a spearhead economic sector.

Gia Lai province is on the right track when it comes to tourism as a pillar of development, not only because of its existing potential but also because of its ability to spread and have positive effects on other sectors such as agriculture, transportation, trade, education and culture. Gia Lai is not only a tourist destination, but is also becoming a destination of opportunity, of the connection between past-present-future, between people-nature-culture.

Not only stopping at the government or business level, the wave of tourism development has also spread strongly to every village and hamlet in the province. Community tourism and agricultural tourism models are gradually being upgraded, aiming to serve international tourists.

International tourists experience Gia Lai brocade weaving.

Ms. H'Uyen Nie, the operator of Ia Mo Nong Community Tourism Village (Ia Ly commune), expressed her hope: "If the government accompanies and supports people in training and skills development, it will not be difficult for our village to approach international tourists. My wish is to learn how to mix drinks to suit the tastes of foreigners, especially traditional dishes to serve Chinese and European guests well."

This is proof that tourism is not just a story of large corporations, but also an opportunity to distribute benefits equally to each local person. When people are equipped with knowledge, skills and have the opportunity to participate in the tourism value chain, community tourism will become a driving force for sustainable livelihood development.

In the period of 2025-2030, tourism will be one of the five economic pillars of Gia Lai province. The goal is to welcome 18.5 million tourists by 2030, including more than 1 million international visitors. To achieve this goal, the culture, sports and tourism sector of Gia Lai province has proposed four core solutions: Focus on preserving and promoting cultural values, historical landscapes; focus on building and promoting tourism brands, focus on connecting East and West, developing sea tourism, community tourism, and experiential tourism; focus on investing resources, especially speeding up the progress of current projects being implemented in the province to attract tourists; and finally, create human resources for tourism development, creating unique tourism products in the future.

On the new foundation after the merger, Gia Lai is gradually transforming strongly, taking tourism as a driving force for economic growth, associated with cultural preservation, improving people's lives and regional integration. With consensus from the government to businesses, people and support from the Party's major policies, Gia Lai is realizing the dream of becoming a unique ecological-cultural-sea-island tourism center of the region and the whole country.

PHUC THANG

Source: https://nhandan.vn/dua-du-lich-gia-lai-tro-thanh-tru-cot-tang-truong-moi-post912000.html