Dong Thap (VNA) – Dong Thap province is promoting agricultural tourism,thereby providing more experiences for tourists as well as helping raise incomefor local farmers.

The Mekong Delta province is well known for its flowers, ornamental plants andfruit orchards.

In its Sa Dec city, more than 2,300 households grow flowers and ornamentalplants on a total of 700ha, mostly used for decoration.

In recent years many of them have begun welcoming sightseers to their flowerand ornamental gardens.

There are now various well – known agricultural tourism destinations like CaiDao – Sa Nhien flower road and flower gardens like Ngoi nha Hoa ech, Hai Cao,Happy Land Hung Thy, and Ngọc Lan.

Pham Thanh Tam, owner of the Canh dong hoa hong (Rose field) tourism site in TanQuy Dong ward, said besides a 2.5ha rose garden for tourists, he also has a5,000sq.m farm growing gourds to sell to them.

Thousands of tourists visit his site every day, he said.

Known as the land of the pink lotus, the province is increasingly attractingtourists to its lotus fields and fruit orchards.

In lotus fields visitors can go around by boat to fish and try specialty foodsmade from various parts of the flower-like stem, root and seed.

They attract more than 10,000 tourists a month, mostly from Ho Chi Minh Cityand neighbouring provinces.

In Lai Vung district, well known for its beautiful pink mandarin and orangeorchards, nine welcome tourists and offer them services including food.

Pink mandarin is the province’s specialty fruit, is popular for its delicioustaste and beautiful colour, and is especially in demand during Tet.

The province has about 100 sites that offer agricultural tourism, which alsohelp protect the environment and promote local cultures.

Pham Thien Nghia, Chairman of the provincial People’s Committee, said there hasbeen a success in developing tourism and the industry has been identified asone of the province’s most important ones.

The province is encouraging tourism start-ups by local people, and would paycloser attention to developing waterway and green tourism, he said.

It has invested in infrastructure for tourism development like roads leading topopular destinations.

This year it received more than 122,000 tourists during Tet in early February,5 percent up from last year./.