Hot sea and river tours

Tours for visitors excursing on Han River and Son Tra peninsula are crowded in the hot days, which makes many tourism companies not meet the visitors’ demands because of the shortage of transportation.

Meeting visitors busily 

After  4 tourism boats in the side of Han River’s east bank, the boat owner Nguyen Manh tidies and prepares water and fruit for the last passenger turn in the afternoon. He has to refuse many tours to Son Tra Peninsula because the machine is not strong enough to go to the sea. However, having known him for many years, many restaurants as well as hotels call him whenever there are tourists. Therefore, he is sometimes unable to serve the tourists who want to have an excursion on Han River or visit Cam Le, Tuy Loan and Hoa Nhon, etc. with his four boats (over 200 seats in total) on the weekend or in the festivals.

“Many visitors ask me for going to the sea but I daren’t. I would serve the tours with over 30 visitors per each one every day if I had stronger boats for the reasons that I prefer taking them to the sea and I would be paid much more”, Mr Manh said. He also said that the visitors usually asked for sea and river tours from Lunar New Year to the end of August except for storms and heavy rain.

According to Huy Khanh Tourism Company which specilises in serving marine entertainment tours and services, the number of visitors in sea tours is about 4000 people, not including the visitors who  take part in some sea sports such as water ski and water motorbike in the recent three months. Especially, “diving to watch coral” is the tour attracting the most number of visitors every day with the price from 250 to 280 VND per person.

Refusing to serve visitors in rush hours         

The Management Board of Son Tra peninsula and Danang tourism beaches generally reports that the number of visitors in the sea during the first 6 months is 5000 people which increases five times compared with the same period last year.

Besides the tours for Son Tra, visitors to Cu Lao Cham by sea increase accompanied by the increase of tourists to Danang and Hoi An in the summer, which shows the two local’s attraction to the domestic visitors, according to Mr Cao Tri Dung – the Deputy General Director of Vietnam Tourism Joint Stock Company ( Vitours). “We must refuse the visitors many times because the transportation and services are beyond our capabilities”, said Mr Dung.

The Director of Viet Da Tourism Company, Mr Dinh Van Loc, said that the company often advised the tourists to visit Son Tra Peninsula with cheaper service price but still attracting instead in cases there were too many tourists visiting Cu Lao Cham. To vary the tours, in Huc Lo area, bushes are cleared and some cottages are built to serve tourists excursing, having snack or diving to watch coral in Hon Sup, Bai Da or outside Mui Nghe, according to Mr Nguyen Ngoc Hiep, Director of Huy Khanh Company. Two canoes are also reinforced, increasing the number of canoes up to seven to enable to serve tourists in tourism season. Also, Huy Khanh Company has just introduced attracting fishing tour at night from 19:30 to 23:00 which takes place 4 or 5 times per week with 15 to 20 tourists per each tour.

The Board intends to form “up to the hill and down to the sea” tour to attract tourists with new feelings. Tourists will be able to go straight to the great old banyan tree from the road, then they can go along the stream to Huc Lo and go canoeing to the places with much coral.