This part of Phu Quoc is NOT a place where tourists seek genuine discoveries and mysterious wonders. This is an amusement park designed to give people, especially a family with small children a great time together on a getaway. The value isn't to see all those fake facades of Roman remnants, fake Amalfi coast - Naples, Venice, or Serengeti, or lost Maya empire, or even Egypt (in Hon Thom theme park). The real value is for a family to spend quality time together in a 5-star tropical resort to get away from the dread of winter. Nothing is more precious than the memory of having fun together with children, family, friends; and all those water parks, theme parks, amusement arcades are just venues for people to bond. Investors of this Phu Quoc project aimed for winter escapists from Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong,.. and additionally, North America and EU, although a bit too far for the latter two. International tourists can fly in visa-free and spend 1-2 weeks completely insulated in a posh resort without experiencing the less savory sides of a developing Vietnam. This will not compete with the Caribbean, Maldives, Fiji, Bora Bora, or even Phuket or Bali, but simply offer a more economical children-friendly/educational alternative for family vacations. The various theme/amusement parks from safari to aquarium to world-culture/civilization exhibits have a strong educational aspect to inspire young children, who learn better about nature and human history through direct physical experience and fun as opposed to gluing to Tiktok. Children are not discriminating whether things are real or replicas. A Mayan pyramid model can instill a sense of wonder in a child, who might dream of being an Indiana Jones when grown-up searching for a secret Mayan necropolis in the Guatemala jungles. Stimulating the mind and infusing a sense of wonder are the best gifts parents can give their children. But Covid-19 was the wild card that threw them off 2020-2023, and now they have to survive the bleeding for a few years while building up its market. A disadvantage of Vietnam is that nobody heard of Vietnam for upscale family tourism. Numerous young single, curious, adventurous backpackers, digital nomads would go to Vietnam to immerse in its poverty as a form of "slumming fun". A North American family can easily spend $10 K on vacation in the Caribbean, Mexico, Costa Rica, etc., or as far as Phuket or Bali, but not Vietnam, as they would conjure the images of roach-infested hotels without modern toilets. In one market research survey, nobody (Americans and Europeans) answered correctly that the world-class 6-star Amanoi resort was in Vietnam (they were shown the video, and none could believe it was in Vietnam; all guessed elsewhere). So, it will require several years of successful marketing for the investors to recoup the money. It is cheap now because essentially it is subsidized to build up the market.
