Dang Minh Truong, CEO of Sun Group.
While the spectacular Cau Vang (Golden Bridge) in Da Nang has made its name on the international stage after being featured in a range of media outlets including the BBC, CNN, AFP and Reuters, the luxury InterContinental Danang Sun Peninsula Resort has just been named Asia’s Leading Luxury Resort in the World Travel Awards 2018. It is among a range of entertainment complexes, resorts and hotels owned by Sun Group.
Dang Minh Truong, CEO of the company talks about sustainable tourism and the importance of improving service infrastructure in tourism development.
What made you return to Viet Nam from Ukraine and start your tourism business?
I still remember a trip 16 years ago. My colleagues and I bought a tour to an island in the Mediterranean. Though the package was quite expensive, it wasn’t up to our expectations. The facilities were poor, the beach was rocky and the landscape was not beautiful. This island, however, was dubbed a world travel paradise.
Meanwhile, Việt Nam has 3,000 km of pristine coastline and is among top countries with rich resources for tourism. Yet Việt Nam is not very well known on the world travel map. It seems like we haven’t had proper advertising and sufficient investment in facilities. Is it because we haven’t had a proper way to promote our tourism?
That question was always on my mind. It pushed me and my colleagues to return home in 2007, starting our business in Đà Nẵng. We determined to invest properly in tourism so that Việt Nam will be well-known as a great tourism destination.
The spectacular Cau Vang (Golden Bridge), owned by Sun Group, in Da Nang has become famous around the world. — Photos courtesy of sungroup
You returned to Việt Nam more than a decade ago, so how has your company realised that goal?
Over the last ten years, sustainability is always our development guideline. Sustainability of Vietnamese tourism is also the decisive factor for businesses like us.
We decided that our tourism products have to meet all four criteria: large scale; unique landscape-architecture; quality service and luxury experience.
We have built a range of resorts and entertainment complexes, many of which have been awarded prestigious international prizes, like InterContinental Danang Sun Peninsula named as one of the world’s leading resorts for four consecutive years.
Along with the localities, we also upgrade and build to improve local infrastructure, creating momentum for tourism development. Some of theses are Van Don International Airport and Hon Gai International Habour in Quang Ninh.
I think this will contribute to the government’s efforts in improving one of the biggest weaknesses of Viet Nam’s tourism – the infrastructure. According to statistics announced at the World Economic Forum, Viet Nam ranked sixth in the top 10 fastest growing tourism destinations globally, yet its tourist service infrastructure ranked 113th out of 136 economies.
According to travel consultancy Lorton Consulting of the UK, there are 12 principles contributing to the success of sustainable tourism development. Are they applied by your business?
As I mentioned, respecting the values of nature and humanity is one of our philosophies. We pay attention to the principles laid out by Lorton Consulting like ‘being different’, ‘respecting natural and cultural values’, ‘enhancing experience’ and ‘building local capacity’.
I want to highlight the principle of ‘building local capacity’ which means tourism businesses don’t stand isolated from the communities in which they operate. This completely aligns with the development philosophy of our company which aims to ensure that our development goes with the goals of improving the image of the country, the locality as well as improve the lives of local people.
In every project that we invest in, we try our best to create jobs with stable incomes for local people. At Sun World Fansipan Legend, more than 60 per cent of our staff is local, in Phu Quoc, the rate is 65 per cent.
We complied with the principle of respecting nature when building InterContinental Danang, which took us five years to complete, instead of the usual two. — OVN
InterContinental Danang Sun Peninsula Resort has just been named Asia’s Leading Luxury Resort by World Travel Awards 2018.
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