Located in the easternmost part of the country, extending for over 385km along the coastal line overlooking the Pacific Ocean, Khanh Hoa is a wonderful land...
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| A view of Nha Trang Bay. |
Located in the easternmost part of the country, extending for over 385km along the coastal line overlooking the Pacific Ocean, Khanh Hoa is a wonderful land with numerous famous tourist attractions. The most remarkable is Nha Trang Bay, one of the world’s most beautiful bays with the first marine protected area of Vietnam. Owing to the diverse resources of the sea and islands and the temperate climate all year round, Nha Trang - Khanh Hoa has become a well-known attraction of the sea and island tourism.
In recent years, in line with the concerns of the Khanh Hoa Provincial Committee, the Khanh Hoa tourism, especially sea tourism, has developed rapidly and will become one of the key economic branches. In June, 1995, the plan for Khanh Hoa tourism development for the 1996-2000 period was approved. Since then, the project has been constantly updated, reformed and supplemented in the direction of the Khanh Hoa tourism development until the years 2010 and 2020. Also, to exploit the Khanh Hoa sea tourism potential, the province has appealed for investment with a focus on some main projects such as VinPearl Resort, the high-grade eco-tourism resorts in Ninh Van, the River Lo, Tien Beach, Lao and Tam Islands… and the marine protected area of Nha Trang Bay. After nearly 5 years’ implemetation of the tourism development program, Khanh Hoa has attracted 94 tourism projects including 26 projects in the northern part of the province, 52 in the southern part and 16 in Nha Trang City, with a total capital of 3,800 billion. Presently, there are 284 residences with over 6,000 rooms and 13,000 beds, among which, 21 resorts and sea tourist attractions are up to 1-5 star standards. The entertainment places, sea island resorts have received nearly 4,000,000 people. In 2004, about 700,000 tourists including 200,000 foreign ones came to Khanh Hoa.
However, due to the rapid tourism development and the increasing number of tourists to Khanh Hoa, large quantities of waste were disposed by tourists and passenger sea transport leading to the higher risk of sea pollution. Some ships’ owners have not complied with the regulations on solid and liquid waste collection and treatment and given their passengers adequate guidance to preserve the marine environment. Many tourists tend to throw plastic bags into the sea without any notice of nearby dustbins. Some tourist businesses on the islands and in the coastal regions have not actively co-operated with responsible authorities in the marine environmental protection. In 2004, the Environment Department in cooperation with the authorities of Khanh Hoa inspected and advised the tourism businesses to be fully aware of the marine environmental protection standards. However, the same situation still remains. In addition, the marine protected area of Nha Trang Bay has sounded an alarm on the possible threatening bad impacts of the socio-economic development on the beauty of Nha Trang Bay. The daily waste from the Cai Estuary running under Tran Phu Bridge into Nha Trang Bay, uncontrolled development of aquaculture activities, sand and coal dust from the constructions, all had bad effects to the Nha Trang Bay ecosystem. One of the reasons why the deplorable situation has existed for such a long time is that penalties for environmental pollution actions were not strict enough. The supervision of environmental protection was not frequently kept for lack of staff. Therefore, the environmental damage has happened in many places, especially in places out of the authorities’ control. Also, there is no socialization policy on environmental protection to mobilize everybody to join in the environmental protection programs so as to make environmental protection become their voluntary work.
According to Tran Son Hai, Director of the Service of Tourism and Trade, to make the Khanh Hoa marine ecological environment more attractive to tourists and contribute much more to the sustainable tourism development, the Khanh Hoa People’s Committee should increase its support for the sea patrol forces both in organization and in equipment. In order to effectively protect the pure environment of Nha Trang Bay, Nha Trang Port has to be upgraded into a tourist port. In addition, when carrying out the tourism projects, businesses, especially those in coastal areas and on islands, have to report their assessment of the impacts on the environment or register to meet the environmental standards. Tourism businesses have to actively improve the environment, prevent environmental pollution, stricly observe the regulations on waste collection and treatment and avoid polluting the marine ecological environment.
BICH KHUE
