Phu Tho: Exploiting the Tourism “Gold Mine” Following Regional Merger

The new development space following the merger of Phu Tho province is viewed as a crucial advantage, creating a foundation for the locality to make a breakthrough and aim toward becoming a major tourism hub for both the region and the entire country.

Tam Dao National Park. Photo: VNA

Advantages from a New Development Space

Following the integration of the development spaces of three former provinces—Phu Tho, Vinh Phuc, and Hoa Binh—the current Phu Tho province possesses a diverse tourism ecosystem, converging values of culture, history, ecology, leisure, and community-based tourism. This is considered a vital advantage, laying the groundwork for the locality to accelerate toward the goal of becoming a major tourism center of the region and the country.

With its position as the gateway to the Northern Midland and Mountainous region, conveniently connecting with the capital city of Hanoi and the Red River Delta provinces, Phu Tho boasts abundant tourism resources. The entire province currently has nearly 1,000 ranked historical relics, six national treasures, and five cultural heritages inscribed by UNESCO. This is an outstanding advantage that few localities possess.

Notably, this is also the ancestral land of the Vietnamese nation, home to the Hung Kings Temple Historical Relic Site, which preserves the Belief in Hung Kings Worship and Phu Tho Xoan Singing—two UNESCO-recognized world intangible cultural heritages. Alongside this is a system of traditional festivals, craft villages, and customs of various ethnic communities, creating a distinctive cultural identity.

A Xoan singing performance at Hung Lo Communal House (Hung Lo commune, Viet Tri city) attracted a large number of international tourists during the Hung Kings Temple Festival and Ancestral Land Tourism - Culture Week 2025. Photo: Ta Toan/VNA

Beyond its rich historical value, Phu Tho also possesses diverse natural landscapes. The Tam Dao area is likened to the “Da Lat of the North” with a mild climate year-round; Xuan Son National Park is famous for its primary forest ecosystem; Hoa Binh Lake is dubbed “Ha Long Bay on land”; and Long Coc tea hill has been honored as one of the most beautiful tea hills in Vietnam. Additionally, there are many attractive destinations such as Dai Lai Lake, Ao Chau, Suoi Tien, Thanh Thuy, Mai Chau, and Kim Boi... creating an interconnected chain of tourism products ranging from leisure and ecology to cultural experiences.

According to Mr. Duong Hoang Huong, Director of the Phu Tho Provincial Department of Culture, Sports, and Tourism, following the merger, the locality has formed a uniquely multifaceted tourism space. This is a special advantage for building regionally linked tourism routes, spots, and products to meet the diverse needs of both domestic and international tourists.

One of the prominent strengths is the rapidly developing high-end leisure tourism system. Many large resorts such as Flamingo Dai Lai Resort, Serena Resort Kim Boi, Mai Chau Hideaway, and FLC Vinh Phuc, along with a series of international standard golf courses like Tam Dao, Thanh Lanh, Dam Vac, or Phoenix Golf & Resort, are attracting high-spending visitors.

Community-based tourism is also becoming a bright spot with characteristic Muong ethnic villages, the Xuan Son highlands, and a rich system of craft villages, ancient villages, and indigenous culture. Tourists can not only sightsee but also experience community life and enjoy famous local specialties such as Thanh Sơn sour meat, sour fermented fish, Doan Hung pomelo, or regional delicacies from the Hoa Binh Lake area.

Along with the diversification of tourism products, the province’s accommodation and tourism service system has been continuously invested in and upgraded to better satisfy tourists' needs. Consequently, visitor arrivals to Phu Tho have steadily increased over the years.

In 2025, the entire province welcomed approximately 14.5 million arrivals, with tourism revenue reaching nearly 14,800 billion VND. In the first 6 months of 2026, the locality is estimated to welcome over 10.5 million arrivals, including over 3.2 million staying guests and around 74,000 international visitors. Total tourism revenue reached over 10,755 billion VND.

With outstanding advantages in natural resources, culture, and geographical location, coupled with a vast room for growth post-merger, Phu Tho is standing before a great opportunity to become the cultural, ecological, and leisure tourism hub of the Northern Midland and Mountainous region in the coming period.

Elevating the Tourism Brand

According to assessments from relevant authorities, Phu Tho province’s tourism industry has not yet developed commensurately with its potential. Connecting infrastructure remains uncoordinated, service quality is still limited, and there is a lack of truly distinctive and highly competitive products. Tourism human resources are both insufficient and weak, while the sector’s contribution to GRDP and the local budget does not yet match its existing resources.

Identifying tourism as an integrated economic sector with strong spillover potential, Phu Tho province has recently devised several breakthrough solutions to turn tourism into a spearhead economic sector, creating a new growth driver for the 2026-2030 period.

The province aims to build a comprehensively developed and highly competitive tourism ecosystem, striving to become a national center for cultural and festival tourism, as well as a prominent destination for spiritual cultural tourism and eco-leisure in the North.

By 2030, Phu Tho aims to welcome at least 20 million tourist arrivals, including approximately 7.8 million staying guests; total tourism revenue is targeted at 26,500 billion VND; the accommodation system is expected to exceed 22,000 rooms and create jobs for about 30,000 direct and indirect workers.

According to Mr. Pham Dai Duong, Secretary of the Phu Tho Provincial Party Committee, to realize this goal, the province must first strongly innovate its perception of tourism’s role. Tourism is not merely a service activity but is placed at the center of a service, cultural, creative, digital, green, and integrated economic ecosystem.

Not only holding great economic and energy significance, Hoa Binh Lake is increasingly affirming its position as one of the most attractive eco-tourism, leisure, and cultural experience destinations in the Northern Midland and Mountainous region. Photo: Trong Dat/VNA

One of the breakthrough solutions prioritized by the province is perfecting mechanisms and policies to attract investment. Phu Tho will focus on the synchronized planning of national tourism areas such as Hung Kings Temple, Tam Dao-Tay Thien, Dai Lai Lake, Hoa Binh Lake, and Xuan Son-Long Coc; at the same time, it will issue specific policies on land, infrastructure, human resource training, and investment promotion to attract strategic investors.

Regarding infrastructure, the province prioritizes investing in transport routes connecting to key tourism zones and destinations; upgrading digital infrastructure to form a smart tourism ecosystem; and developing convention centers, exhibition hubs, high-end resorts, and large-scale entertainment complexes.

A notable direction is the development of high-value-added tourism products. In addition to its strengths in cultural and spiritual tourism associated with the Hung Kings Temple and UNESCO heritages, the province will focus on developing types of tourism such as: eco-leisure, wellness, golf tourism, MICE (Meetings, Incentives, Conferences, Exhibitions), community-based tourism, waterway tourism on Hoa Binh Lake, adventure sports, and experiential tourism.

In particular, Phu Tho aims to shift strongly from a “sightseeing tourism” mindset to “experiential tourism”, developing night-time economic products, healing tourism, retirement leisure, agricultural tourism, and “slow tourism” models. This is considered a vital solution to prolong tourists' length of stay and increase their spending.

Parallel to product development, the locality also attaches great importance to improving the quality of human resources. Vocational skills, foreign languages, and digital transformation training programs for tourism workers will be widely implemented; businesses are encouraged to participate in training and building a high-quality workforce to meet integration requirements.

Digital transformation is identified as an important driving force in the new phase. The province aims to digitize 100% of recognized tourism destinations; build a synchronized tourism database; and implement digital maps, automated audio guides, QR codes, and virtual reality (VR) applications to enhance visitor experiences.

In promotional and marketing efforts, Phu Tho will step up the application of digital technology, cooperate with major media corporations, organize national and international-scale cultural and tourism events, and expand linkages with Hanoi, Northwestern provinces, the Red River Delta, and key international markets.

With a synchronized system of solutions ranging from planning, infrastructure investment, product development, and human resource training to digital transformation and brand promotion, Phu Tho expects to create a powerful breakthrough, turning tourism into a spearhead economic sector that contributes increasingly to economic growth and improves local living standards in the 2026-2030 period.

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