Smart tourism in Quang Ninh

Quang Ninh is one of the pioneers in Vietnam undertaking smart tourism solutions. Quang Ninh’s infrastructure for smart tourism is gradually completed basing on the platform of smart urban areas.

The website discoverhalong.com.vn in 3 languages: Vietnamese, English, Chinese

Smart tourism is simply understood as a kind of tourism which is developed basing on the platform of information, technology, and communications, thus ensuring the interaction among managers, enterprises, and tourists. Quang Ninh is eligible to develop smart tourism as it ranks the 3rd for the development and application of information and communications technology (Vietnam ICT Index) in 2019.

Setting up and developing integrated tourism data and a tourism portal are considered as the first key and one of the first priorities during the process of developing smart tourism in Quang Ninh. To date, tourist can log in websites: namely halongtourism.com.vn and discoverhalong.com (in 3 languages: Vietnamese, English, and Chinese) or fanpage “Thông tin Du lịch Quảng Ninh” (Quang Ninh tourism information) to check tourism information. 

They not only introduce tourist sites, tourism services, festivals, culinary, accommodations…via articles, pictures, videos, but also offer maps, online room, bus, and ticket booking services, hotlines to give tourists support and receive their feedbacks.

In the future, the tourism portal will apply advanced technologies, for example, AI and VR, to help tourists self-design and enjoy virtual tours before starting the real ones. 

Besides, Quang Ninh has focused on investing in information and technology infrastructure which is a foundation for smart tourism. Tourists now easily have Internet access via more than 100 free public wifi hotspots at airports, bus stations, densely – populated places, and tourist areas.

All tourist boats on Ha Long Bay have had GSP installed to improve tourists’ safety. The surveillance cameras in Dau Go Cave and Thien Cung Grotto continuously transmit data to the monitoring department.

Dulichuongbi app launched in Apr, 2019

With a smart phone, tourists can download apps relating to tourism, for instant, searching information via voice, automatic language translation, virtual voice-over tourist guide, 3D tours…

In April 2019, Uong Bi City launched Dulichuongbi app which suggests tourist sites, expected schedule, estimated expenses, and time for tourist to discover in a way that matches their needs.

Quang Ninh is focusing on completing Smart Tourism Governance Center which is expected to officially operate this year. Building smart tourism is an inevitable trend and Quang Ninh is not out of the track, with the aim of turning the province into smart tourist city top in Vietnam and ASEAN.

Translated by Quynh Trang