Cat Ba archipelago

Much potential for development

Hai Phong has rich cultural, historical and festive traditions as well as natural tourism resources. Cat Ba Archipelago has five national and international titles. The city also has many historical and cultural relics with unique architecture such as Nghe Temple, Hang Kenh Communal House, Du Hang Pagoda and Tuong Long Tower. Besides, the city still preserves traditional craft villages to this day.

By unlocking these potential advantages, Hai Phong has built many diverse and unique tourism products, particularly the long-renowned maritime tourism. Cat Ba or Do Son is famous to tourists domestically and internationally. In addition, the city is popular for many festivals, spiritual tourism, ecotourism, leisure tourism, entertainment and sports (golfing).

In particular, the culinary tourism products - "food tour Hai Phong" (a tour to experience delicious foods of Hai Phong) and "city tour Hai Phong" - have become explosive phenomena on social networks. This is the new choice of tourists when talking about Hai Phong, especially young people and students.

According to Hai Phong Tourism Department, in 2023, the city's tourism sector will strive to entice over 7.5 million visitors, with Cat Ba welcoming 3 million visitors and Do Son welcoming 2.5 million visitors. In the first eight months of 2023, Hai Phong welcomed and served 5,552,537 visitors, an increase of 13.73% year on year, including 666,735 international visitors, up 75.64% year on year.

Dragon Golf Link

Competitiveness enhancement

The resolution of the 16th Hai Phong City Party Congress for the 2020 - 2025 term determines: “Developing Hai Phong into a major national tourism center where tourism infrastructure, especially world-class tourism projects, shopping centers and high-class resorts, will be developed; Forming locally distinctive tourism products linked with popular islands, historical and cultural relics.” Sticking to this direction, the city has recently paid attention to boosting investment in tourism infrastructure development. From 2021 to August 2023, the city attracted six more tourism investment projects with VND16,385.93 billion. Typical projects include Flamingo Cat Ba, Dream Dragon Resort - Dragon Hill International Tourist Area, Sheraton, Melia Vinpearl Hai Phong Rivera, Pullman and Hilton.

The city is currently home to 569 tourist accommodation facilities with 15,598 rooms, an increase of 14% compared to 2019 and to 121 travel firms, including 64 international travel companies, 54 domestic travel companies and three corporate travel and tourism service branches. The number of travel businesses is 65.7% more than that in 2019.

Additionally, to improve the quality of tourism services, Hai Phong City has fostered training and developed tourism human resources professionally, with a focus on retail workers and food service workers. At present, the city has 12,800 tourism workers, equal to 81% in 2019. Among them, 75% of tourism workers are trained.

Notably, Hai Phong's tourism sector is really boosted by technological application and digital transformation. The city successfully deployed the digital map of Hai Phong City Tour, an online travel exchange, and launched the #HelloHaiPhong promotion campaign on the TikTok platform. These are smart and convenient channels for tourists to look up and find information, and get directions to restaurants, check-in points and hotels.

Ms. Nguyen Thi Thuong Huyen, Director of Hai Phong Tourism Department, said: In the coming time, Hai Phong will continue to improve product quality, spread its unique cultural values, and bring different experiences to visitors, tap the domestic tourist market, and gradually restore traditional international tourist markets and seek new markets for sustainable tourism development.

The city will focus on expanding the tourism space to the south with medical tourism products, agricultural and rural tourism in suburban districts, and historical and cultural tourism for product diversity. The city will speed up the progress of projects like expanded Do Son Golf Course and Sakura Golf Course, VinWonder Vu Yen Theme Park and shopping centers to address seasonal characteristics and attract tourists in the high-paying markets.

Hai Phong City will create a stable, open, equitable investment environment and ensure benefits for investors; actively resolve difficulties and obstacles in investment processes to woo potential and reputable investors to create breakthroughs in building key tourist areas.