My Nhien
TVU – On March 28, at the School of Economics and Law, Tra Vinh University, a workshop was held to collect expert opinions on developing the training program of Tourism Economics at the university level, focusing on building a set of professional competencies for students. This event attracted the participation of many economics and tourism experts, lecturers, and managers.
The workshop had the attendance of Associate Professor Dr. Nguyen Van Nguyen, Principal of the School of Economics and Law; Dr. Nguyen Tan Dat, Vice Principal of the School of Economics and Law; MSc. To Hoang Tuan, Deputy Head of the Training Department of Tra Vinh University; Dr Ngo So Phe, Principal of the School of Southern Khmer Language – Culture – Arts and Humanities; Dr Duong Ngoc Bich, Deputy Director of the Center for Learning Resources, Teaching and Learning Development; and representatives of the school’s units.
On the side of the experts, there were Dr Tran Thanh Cao, Deputy Director of the Forestry Science Institute; Dr Tran Hung Cuong, Specialist of the Tourism Promotion Center of Tra Vinh Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism; and experts from departments, branches and universities in the region.
In his opening speech, Assoc. Prof. Dr Nguyen Van Nguyen, Principal of the School of Economics and Law, shared that the contributions of the delegates would help improve the training program in Tourism Economics, meeting the development needs of the tourism industry, especially in the context of the Mekong Delta region emerging as a bright spot for tourism.
At the workshop, experts gave many vital comments on the subjects in the training program. They proposed supplementing and amending some subjects to make the training program more suitable for the tourism industry’s needs. The comments focused on building a program to develop the tourism economy, especially ecotourism and marine tourism, which are strong development trends in the Mekong Delta region.
Dr Tran Thanh Cao, Deputy Director of the Forestry Science Institute, commented that the Mekong Delta region possesses great potential for ecotourism development and that the development of the Tourism Economics sector is necessary to promote the sustainable development of the tourism industry. According to him, schools in the region mainly train in tourism management, but there is no major in Tourism Economics. Therefore, building this training program will meet a great demand.
In addition, Dr Tran Hung Cuong, Specialist of the Tourism Promotion Center of Tra Vinh Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism, emphasized that tourism is becoming an important economic sector for the locality’s development. Today’s main tourism trends are ecotourism, spiritual tourism, and sea tourism. The tourism economics sector will create a solid foundation for sustainable development.
Experts discussed the difficulties that the School of Economics and Law might encounter when implementing the training program in Tourism Economics. Still, all agreed that the development of this program not only meets the human resource needs of the industry but also contributes to the development of the local economy. The goal of the workshop is to collect comments from experts, lecturers, managers, and businesses to perfect the program and, at the same time, create a scientific and practical basis for the School of Economics and Law to submit a project to open a major in Tourism Economics to competent authorities for approval.
