Nha Trang seeks to turn pristine island into tourist hub

As part of a newly-amended master plan for Nha Trang with a vision towards 2040 for which local authorities are seeking public opinion, the island in Nha Trang Bay will have a total planning area of nearly 1,350 hectares.

The planned area would comprise 20-storey hotels and other tourism services to turn the island into an ecotourism hub of international standard.

As the largest island in Nha Trang Bay, one of the world's most beautiful, Hon Tre covers over 3,000 hectares and is home to some luxury resorts and long, sandy beaches.

The island, around three kilometers from the mainland, is home to 1,500 inhabitants who mainly live on fishing and tourism, though its population is expected to rise to 4,600 by 2025.

The island welcomes around 1.9 million tourists per year.

Nha Trang in central Vietnam is well known for its beaches and scuba diving, attracting large numbers of foreign visitors every year before the coronavirus outbreak.

In 2019, the year before the onset of Covid, the town helped Khanh Hoa Province receive over seven million tourists, half of them foreigners.