With over 10,500 hectares of water surface area, Son La Hydropower Reservoir is surrounded by majestic high mountains, with many islands and submerged islands creating a magnificent landscape, Quynh Nhai is considered as the "Ha Long Bay" of the Northwest region. Promoting that potential and advantage, Quynh Nhai district focuses on implementing many solutions, building the reservoir area into an attractive tourist destination.
Tourists visit the Son La hydroelectric reservoir in Quynh Nhai district.
Mr. Lo Thanh Thuy, Vice Chairman of Quynh Nhai District People's Committee, said: To develop lake tourism, the district is synchronously implementing solutions, reviewing, adjusting, supplementing, and issuing mechanisms and policies, focusing on attracting investment in infrastructure construction, creating many unique tourism products, attracting domestic and foreign tourists. Promoting the image of tourism products through mass media and on social networking platforms.
Along with that, the district focuses on completing the planning, announcing the list of investment attraction projects, promoting administrative reform, accompanying and supporting enterprises and cooperatives to survey and seek investment opportunities in the district. Up to now, the whole district has 7 tourist attractions with different investment methods to meet the needs of tourists coming to visit and travel; 8 tourist accommodation establishments, including 1 hotel, the rest are motels, homestays and other types of tourist accommodation. Since the beginning of the year, Quynh Nhai district has welcomed over 153,000 visitors, with revenue of over 60 billion VND.
Quynh Nhai Travel Joint Stock Company is managing and exploiting Uy Phong Bay, Da Giang floating island, with 3 2-storey tourist boats, with a capacity of 30-100 passengers/boat; on average, each year welcomes about 10,000 tourists, with a revenue of 3.5 billion VND/year.
Mr. La Van Phong, Director of Quynh Nhai Travel Joint Stock Company, said: Currently, in addition to exploring tours, we also open floating restaurants on the river and combine fish farming in cages to serve tourists to experience and enjoy dishes made from Da River fish. Along with that, we also open more tourism products associated with rivers, such as: Experience rowing; participate in underwater cheerleading teams; catch fish; foot massage with fish...
Grasping the trends and needs of tourists when traveling to the Da River Reservoir, such as: Wanting to visit the reservoir; participating in recreational activities on the water, learning about local culture, enjoying local cuisine, shopping for products... some businesses and cooperatives have proactively combined fish farming with investing in tourist boats and building resorts to provide services to pick up and drop off visitors to tourist attractions.
Mr. Pham Van Doanh, Director of Quynh Nhai Tourism Investment and Development Company Limited, Son La, said: To serve the needs of tourists, the Company invested in building Trung Kien Resort with 10 bungalows, 25 hotel rooms and 2 community rooms; 3 tourist boats to take visitors to visit the lake area. In addition, the Company also raises 25 cages of catfish, sturgeon, black carp... according to VietGAP process so that tourists can visit, experience fish farming on the lake and enjoy dishes made from fish on the hydroelectric lake.
Located in the Pa Uon bridge area, Pauon Ecolakes Ecotourism Area has an area of nearly 2.5 hectares, including 12 bungalows and 3 communal rooms, accommodating about 80 guests, with a unique, different and beautiful architecture. In addition, the tourist area also has 3 boats carrying tourists to visit the lake. At the end of 2023, the unit put into operation the Binh Yen Bay tourist site, with an area of 1.5 hectares, attracting a large number of tourists to visit and experience.
Coming to Quynh Nhai for the first time, Mr. Bui Minh Ngoc, a tourist from Ninh Binh city, shared: We were very impressed by the beauty of the majestic and poetic lake. In particular, enjoying dishes imbued with national cultural identity right on the lake made me unforgettable. Surely, I will return to Quynh Nhai with my family and friends to continue exploring the interesting things here.
Striving to become one of the key tourist areas, aiming to become a national tourist area, Quynh Nhai district continues to build new and unique tourism products, bearing the unique identity of the river countryside; mobilizing all resources for investment in building essential infrastructure, serving tourism, becoming an attractive destination for tourists on their journey to explore the Northwest region.
Article and photos: Duc Anh
Developing tourism in hydroelectric reservoirs (baosonla.org.vn)