"An Giang has an advantage in tourism development over other provinces in the region, with a diversified terrain and 90km border with Cambodia," said the provincial Tourism Department director Bui Thi Hong Ha.
The province welcomed 3.84mil tourists last year, including 40,000 foreigners mainly from the US, France, Australia, Japan, China and Cambodia. It generated VND1.5tril ($94mil) from tourism revenue, a modest increase of 7%.
"Inadequate tourism infrastructure, insufficient accommodation facilities and poor tourism products are still major challenges facing An Giang in attracting visitors," Ha noted.
"We receive over three million visitors a year but most of them come on pilgrimage trips with only 350,000 or 10% of them staying in the province," she said.
The province hoped that future visitors would come to the province not just for pilgrimage trips but also to visit entertainment parks, adventure sport areas and tours linking to tourist attractions in border areas and abroad.
"The top tasks for us are developing more tourism facilities arid offering customers attractive tourist products so they stay longer in the province," Ha said, adding that the province wants to attract five million visitors a year, with 20% staying in the province by 2010.
The province decided to set aside VND1.93tril ($121mil) for its hospitality sector to create sufficient infrastructure, pursuant to its tourism action programme set for 2006-2010.
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