Construction and exploitation of the Thom River coconut floating market tourist route

11/10/2023 804 0
BDK - Thời gian qua, tuyến du lịch (DL) chợ nổi dừa sông Thom, huyện Mỏ Cày Nam đã được một số doanh nghiệp (DN) DL đưa vào khai thác và được kỳ vọng như là sản phẩm DL mang tính đặc trưng của tỉnh. Tuy nhiên, với nhiều khó khăn hiện hữu, tuyến DL này vẫn chưa được khai thác hiệu quả, để ngỏ nhiều giá trị văn hóa bản địa tiềm năng.

A section of Thom river viewed from Thom bridge, An Thanh commune, Mo Cay Nam district.

The full potential has not been exploited

Thom River Coconut Floating Market is located about 7km from the center of Mo Cay town, in An Thanh commune, Mo Cay Nam district and Khanh Thanh Tan commune, Mo Cay Bac district. On both sides of the Thom River, there are many coconut processing establishments, making many unique products from coconut such as: dried coconut meat, coconut fiber, coconut shell charcoal, clean soil from coconut peat, coconut oil, coconut candy, coconut fiber mats, coconut handicraft products... The coconut floating market on the Thom River is known as the unique coconut floating market in the West, because the main products are coconuts and coconut products.

The tour routes here are designed by tourism businesses for 1-2 days of sightseeing, combined with other localities such as: Mo Cay Bac, Ben Tre city, or as a separate 1-day destination. After that, tourists will move back to stay in Ben Tre city or continue through Tra Vinh. According to the district's assessment, the district's tourism potential has not been fully exploited. Facilities, resources, and materials to serve tourists meet the needs but do not meet the required standards. Tourist attractions formed are still spontaneous, small-scale, transportation infrastructure does not meet the requirements of tourism development, cannot retain long-term tourists, and lacks eating, drinking spots, entertainment, shopping spots to serve tourists.

A typical tourism business of Mo Cay Nam district, Coconut Homestay, has recently included the Thom River coconut floating market in its tour route. Mr. Thach Si Na - Owner of Coconut Homestay said that the feedback from tourists, especially international tourists to the coconut floating market area, is very good. However, the promotion of the coconut floating market needs to be more careful to avoid causing confusion for tourists associating it with floating markets in other localities.

Also expressing the limitations encountered, Mr. Tri Van Nghiep - Cai Cam Tourism unit, one of the tourism businesses that has been associated for many years with the eco-tourism tour in the Mo Cay Bac - Mo Cay Nam area said: Tour of tourism Cai Cam took tourists from Thom market along Tram Bau canal to enter the Dong Khoi traditional house area. Currently, the unit is looking for more stops for tourists to drink coconut water and see how to pick coconuts, as well as places to eat, drink, and shop for coconut products.

According to comments from tourism businesses that are exploiting the Thom River coconut floating market tourism route, they are currently facing limitations when bringing tourists to this route because of the lack of boarding and disembarkation berths for cruise ships. Along the Thom River, there are many coconut farming establishments but they have not yet exploited tourism properly. The potential and space of local agricultural cooperatives is still high, but they only stop at production, business, but the tourism is not yet exploited.

Suggest many solutions

According to Director of the Provincial Tourism Promotion Information Center Vo Thanh Son, the district needs to locate and reorganize to clearly form well-organized tourist reception points. From there, continue to promote and introduce the destination to tourists inside and outside the province and abroad.

Mr. Vo Van Phong - DL C2T (Ben Tre City) shared that environmental problems caused by livestock farming on both banks of the Thom River are still noticeable. To develop Thom River tourism, it is necessary to build a tourism product "from the coconut garden to the Thom River", with lead products for promotional communications, along with the main product, bearing the characteristics of the Thom River to avoid product duplication in other localities. Take advantage of the space of Dong Khoi relic area to tell the full story from the coconut garden to the river wharf.

In addition, tourism businesses suggest that the tourism industry as well as localities can consider building an art performance program recreating the Dong Khoi story at Dong Khoi Relics or the story at Tuyen Linh Pagoda to welcome tourists.

Vice Chairman of Mo Cay Nam District People's Committee Nguyen Viet Thanh said: The District People's Committee will coordinate with provincial departments and branches to speed up the progress of zoning planning towards detailed planning of 4 subdivisions of the Coconut Village Project approved by the provincial People's Committee. In the immediate future, the District People's Committee will develop a joint plan with provincial departments, branches and units to implement solutions. The District People's Committee will have its own plan to assign functional branches of the district and People's Committees of communes and towns to mobilize people, coconut producing and trading households along the Thom River to participate in tourism development.

According to Deputy Director of the Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism Nguyen Thi Ngoc Dung, from the perspective of the role of the state management agency on tourism, the department will coordinate with relevant departments and branches along with the district to better infrastructure, policy mechanisms, better tourism products; Coordinate the implementation of communication and tourism promotion, training and fostering human resources to better exploit the Thom River coconut floating market tourism route.

Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism, Mo Cay Nam District People's Committee recently coordinated to organize a working session to exchange solutions for building and exploiting the Thom River coconut floating market tourist route associated with coconut processing villages and Dong Khoi special national relic site. The meeting was attended by representatives of relevant departments, branches, local authorities, cooperatives of Mo Cay Nam district, and tourism businesses in the province.

At the meeting, tourism businesses and cooperatives had many contributions as well as recommendations and suggestions to join hands with functional agencies and local authorities to effectively exploit the Thom River coconut floating market tourism route.

Article and photos: Thanh Dong

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