MASTER PLAN ON DEVELOPMENT OF NATIONAL TOURISM ZONE OF CON DAO, BA RIA – VUNG TAU PROVINCE TO 2030

Area which is for planning and developing Con Dao national tourism zone is in administrative boundary of Con Dao district, Ba Ria - Vung Tau province, including 16 islands with a total land area of ​​about 75,15km² and water surface area from inland waterways boundary of Con Dao area is ​​about 14,000 km².
- About 185 km from south Vung Tau city.
- About 250 km from southeast Ho Chi Minh City.
- About 83 km from Hau river estuary.
Area of zone which is expected to develop to become a national tourism zone is about 1,000 hectares (10 km²).

II. Development viewpoints

1. Development of Con Dao natural tourism zone must be in consistent with strategy and master plan of tourism development of Vietnam, master plan on tourism development of southeast region to 2020, vision to 2030; master plan on socio- economic development and master plan on tourism development of Ba Ria - Vung Tau province; ensuring consistency with adjusted master plan on construction of Con Dao, Ba Ria - Vung Tau province to 2030 and strategies and plans of sectors and other related fields.

2. Development of Con Dao national tourism zone is on basis of rational exploitation of advantages of marine and forest resource values of Con Dao national park; promoting value of Con Dao special national historic relic zone. Giving priority to development of model of eco-tourism, senior resorts, cultural - historic – spiritual tourism and at the same time, must be associated with international markets and enhancing tourism competitiveness with other islands at home and foreign countries.

3. Development of Con Dao national tourism zone creates premise and motive power to boost development of other production and service fields, attracting participation of local communities on the island; associating with development of city of Vung Tau, Long Hai - Phuoc Hai national tourism zone, important tourism potentials of Ba Ria - Vung Tau in close linkage with Ho Chi Minh City and entire southeast region.

4. Development of Con Dao national tourism zone is in order to overcome seasonality of tourism activities in the local; at the same time, associating tourism development with tasks of promoting and conserving historical – cultural value, protecting landscape, environment, ensuring national defense and security; contributing to restructure local economy toward increasing proportion of services – tourism field.
III. Development objectives
1. Overall objectives

By 2020, Con Dao natural tourism zone basically meets criteria of a national tourism zone.
Striving to 2030, Con Dao become a culture - history – spiritual and island marine ecology tourism zone with high quality, unusual excellence at regional and international level, having modern, synchronous technical infrastructure system; tourism products have trademarks, high competitiveness, traditional culture features associating with promoting values ​​of Con Dao ​​special national historic relic zone; preparing conditions necessary to become a tourism urban area.

2. Specific objectives

- Traveler target: by 2020, welcoming over 180,000 arrivals. Striving to 2030, welcoming 300,000 arrivals; out of which, approximately 120,000 international arrivals, making up 40%.

- Total revenues of tourism (at current prices): by 2020, reaching VND 1,200 billion. Striving to 2030, reaching about VND 2,800 billion.

- Target of accommodation: by 2020, having over 1,000 hotel rooms. Striving to 2030, having about 1,800 hotel rooms.
- Target of job: by 2020 creating jobs for about 5,200 workers. Striving to 2030, creating jobs for 8,000 workers.
IV. Key development orientation
1. Development of tourist market

- To focus on exploiting tourist market of resort, cultural – spiritual tourism, historic-revolution traditional education; market of tourist coming from huge city, major tourism centers such as Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City, Can Tho, Da Nang...).

- To focus on attracting market of international tourists from Japan, China, Korea, U.S., Canada, Australia, New Zealand; some countries in Southeast Asia such as Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia; promoting attraction of tourist market coming from Western Europe, Northern Europe and Russia; focusing tourist group having high spending, long-stay and market segment of resort tourism, natural exploration tourism and maintaining visitors of learning culture - history.

2. Development of tourism products
- To develop diversified tourism products on basis of characteristic values ​​of culture, history and nature of Con Dao island.

- To focus on development of key tourism products such as eco-tourism, beach resorts; island sightseeing; natural heritage experiences and historical - cultural – spiritual value learning.

3. Raising capacity of accessing to land and improving transport links among islands under Con Dao national tourism zone

- To raise capacity of accessing Con Dao natural tourism zone by both airway and seaway through upgrading Con Dao airport, opening more domestic and international direct flights, upgrading cruise ship port and increasing transport frequency.

- To enhance ability of connection of tourism destinations on islands, between town of Con Son with small islands; between Con Dao national tourism zone with neighboring destinations to extend arrival’s day.
4. Improving quality of infrastructure systems, tourism services

- To select positions of constructing projects, facilities of tourism service in line with space and development orientation of each specific area as planned. Developing system of tourism accommodation to be suitable with natural landscape and scale of development of Con Dao natural tourism zone; out of which, prioritizing projects of luxury accommodation from 4 stars or higher with appropriate density.

- To improve quality of tourism services to be suitable with development investment orientation. Identifying that sustainable tourism, green tourism are basic development orientation of Con Dao tourism.

- To improve quality of supplementary services such as transport services, public toilets, service of supporting information for tourists and utilities ensuring environmental quality, security and safety for visitors.
5. Organizing space for tourism development

- Subdivision of Con Dao tourism development include: Con Son town central; French street in town of Con Son; historical - cultural – spiritual zone; Ben Dam port; pristine coastline; scenic coastline; Con Dao mountains (including Con Dao national park) and small island systems.

- Principles of organizing tourism space:

+ Organization of tourism development space must be in consistent with task of protecting and developing forests, conserving cultural heritage, protecting ecological environment, national security and defense and at the same time, promoting maximum potential, value of historical - cultural relic, natural resources and biodiversity resources of Con Dao;

+ To make a difference among tourism subdivisions of Con Dao with key destinations including luxury marine ecology resorts, old city having French architecture, tourism service zone in town of Con Son and Ben Dam, untouched beach area in northwest island, mountain peaks in Co Ong area and scenic spots in national park.
- Tourism routes:

+ To develop internal island tourism routes from town of Con Son (or Con Dao national park) to sightseeing destinations: Chim Chim peak – Co Ong - Dam Tre bay; Ong Dung beach – Ong Cau beach – Thanh Gia mountain; Ca Map peak - Ben Dam bay;
+ To exploit tourism routes of walking (trekking), cycling on island of Bay Canh;

+ To organize and exploit effectively sea tourism routes, connecting with tourism destination which are difficult to access by road, small islands under system of islands in Con Dao, including Hon Trung, Ong Cuong yard, Hon Tre island, Ba island (Ba Non bay, Dam Quoc bay), Nhat yard, islands cluster of Tai, Bay, Cau...;

+ To form inter-regional tourism route (by airway and seaway), connecting Con Dao with city of Vung Tau, Ho Chi Minh City, Da Nang - Thua Thien - Hue, Can Tho, Phu Quoc island ... to enhance attraction of arrivals;

+ To connect Con Dao with international tourism routes by seaway to major tourism centers in the Southeast Asian region and the world.
6. Organizing management of national tourism zone

To establish management board of Con Dao national tourism zone in accordance with Law on Tourism to unify management of all activities of development investments, preservation and promotion of value of Con Dao special national historical relic zone, environmental protection, protection and development of forests.
7. Development investment orientation
To mobilize effectively all resources to invest in development of Con Dao national tourism zone, including investment supporting capital from the State budget, ODA capital, foreign direct investment capital (FDI), capital raised from contributions of business organizations and economic sectors in the country and other lawfully mobilized capital sources; out of which, giving priority to attract investment capital into functional areas under the plan; a part of capital mobilized from all economic sectors is essential.

Basing on annual balancing capacity, investment capital from the State budget will support part of infrastructure investment in functional areas, promoting, advertising and building trademark of tourism, developing human resource for conservation, restoration and promotion of value of Con Dao special national historical relic zone.
V. Solution on implementation of the plan
1. Solution on planning and plan management

- To review and adjust master plan, detailed plan of functional areas and component projects of Con Dao national tourism zone; issuing management regulation of Con Dao national tourism zone.

- To manage development construction investment of Con Dao national tourism zone in accordance with plan and approved investment projects.

2. Investment solutions

- To research and propose amendments or newly issue a number of specific incentive mechanisms and policies for Con Dao tourism development.

- To develop programs on investment promotion and attraction of large-scale investments; paying special attention on projects of high quality resorts, ecological motels and activities of eco-tourism, historical - cultural – spiritual tourism.

- To focus on promoting, calling for investment under list of priority investment projects attached to this Decision.
3. Solution on development of human resources

- To enhance training, retraining and workforce development, particularly focusing on management team, high skilled employees; at the same time, supporting training to transfer agricultural laborers to work in tourism services.

- To research to apply measures of attracting qualified, skilled, professional human resource; performing leasing of local and international experts in key positions.

4. Solution on promoting, advertising and building trademark of the tourism zone

- To build and organize to implement a plan of promoting, advertising Con Dao national tourism zone in common plan of tourism promotion and advertisement of province of Ba Ria - Vung Tau and southeast region; having separate plans on promoting and advertising tourism in each specific market segment.

- To build symbol of Con Dao tourism; forming a unique, specific trademark of Con Dao national tourism zone.
- To build website for advertising Con Dao tourism.
5. Solution on tourism development cooperation

- To strengthen link between tourism development investment with other fields and sectors to solve problems related to management of tourism development such as product development investment, tourism promotion and advertisement, environmental protection, exploitation of tourism resources, land and infrastructure management and use, ensuring national defense and security.

- To boost a linkage between Con Dao national tourism zone with other key tourism development destinations in province of Ba Ria - Vung Tau; strengthening linkages with other national tourism zone, key tourism zones, important tourism destinations of southeast region, the Mekong river delta region and the wholly country to promote advantages and characteristics of natural resources to create diversified, plentiful tourism products.

6. Solutions on protecting resources and the environment, responding to climate change and ensuring national defense and security

- To identify specifically ecotourism routes and strictly apply rules on ecotourism activities in protected space under regulations on management of monuments and special-use forests.

- To seriously implement measures of protecting environment in accordance with Law on environmental protection; encouraging environmentally friendly tourism products; increasing investment in protection and development of forests; protecting and developing indigenous genetic resources at botanical garden.
- To implement conservation and renovation of historic – cultural relics, historical - revolutionary relics in accordance with law on cultural heritage.

- To build environmental management plan for Con Dao national tourism zone; out of which, strengthening use of renewable energy, reusing water resources, material ...; building and operating efficiently environment infrastructure system of Con Dao national tourism zone and raising environmental awareness.

- To research and apply technology of most economical use of non-renewable energy source and fresh water; increasing use of renewable energy sources in tourism service facilities. Encouraging use of transport means causing less environmental pollution.

- To assess impact of climate change to investment projects in process of reviewing and approving the projects. Applying designs which are suitable with situation of climate change and sea level rise on coastal projects. Issuing document of "guidelines of sustainable development for construction projects" including rules about architectural design and use of building materials, use of energy and fresh water, systems of recycling, reusing, ventilation, natural lighting...

- To orient that all investment projects in Con Dao must ensure target of combining socio-economic development with strengthening national defense and security, social order and safety.

- To perform strict inspection and supervision of activities of sightseeing, tourism in national parks; enhancing development of tourism activities outside national park boundary.
VI. Organizing to implement the plan
1. The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism:

- To support the People's Committee of Ba Ria - Vung Tau province in establishment of management board of national tourism zone as well as in evaluation of planned and investment projects within national tourism zone or other tourism projects which have major impacts on Con Dao national tourism zone.

- In collaboration with Ministry of Planning and Investment and the State Bank of Vietnam to support the People's Committee of Ba Ria - Vung Tau province to perform tourism development investment socialization and calling for Con Dao tourism development investment capital.

- To co-function as the main implementers with the People's Committee of Ba Ria - Vung Tau province, in collaboration with relevant ministries to evaluate dossier of design, planning and investment projects which have major influences, impacts on Con Dao national tourism zone and protected areas of Con Dao special national historical relic zone.
- To functions as the main implementer, in collaboration with related ministries and agencies to support monitoring and supervision of implementation of the plan.

2. Ministry of Planning and Investment, Ministry of Finance are responsible for compiling and balancing expenditure supporting part from the State budget for implementation of the plan under provisions of the State budget law and related legal documents.

3. Related ministries and agencies within assigned functions and tasks shall functions as the main implementers, in collaboration with Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, the People's Committee of Ba Ria - Vung Tau province to implement the plan.
4. The People's Committee of Ba Ria - Vung Tau province:

- To publicize plan scheme; setting up detailed plans to implement the plan; inspecting and supervising regularly; preliminary reviewing 5 years and summarizing 15 years of implementing the plan to suggest competent authorities contents which need to be adjusted and supplemented in process of implementing the plan.
- To establish management board of Con Dao natural tourism zone.

- To review and perfect investment encouraged, incentive mechanisms and policies; prioritizing strategic investors to implement investment in projects of development of Con Dao national tourism zone.

- To organize to set up common plan of tourism zone, detailed plan and feasibility projects for a number of important functional areas in order to attract and call for investment.

- To shall function as the main implementer, in collaboration with Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, Ministry of Planning and Investment and the State Bank of Vietnam to organize activities of promoting and calling for investment on basis of list of priority projects attached to this decision.
Basing on actual situation of implementation of the plan, the People's Committee of Ba Ria - Vung Tau province and Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism may agree to adjust title, decides to add or reduce projects.

- To proactively allocate funds from local State budgets for development of technical infrastructure, urban infrastructure and environmental infrastructure for tourism zone; integrating tourism investment with investment in other fields; promoting investment in tourism development.