Launching community tourism product with many new highlights
On July 1, Hanoi Department of Tourism coordinated with My Duc Commune People's Committee to organize a Conference to connect and develop Muong Coc community tourism and announce the community tourism product "Muong Coc - Touching Peace". This is a product built according to the green tourism orientation, taking the community as the center, contributing to diversifying Hanoi's tourism products.
After nearly a year of surveying and building, Muong Coc officially introduces 18 experiential journeys for many customer segments, from domestic, international, school to MICE customers. Prominent is the program "One day as a Muong person", bringing tourists to immerse themselves in the life of local people through activities such as wearing traditional costumes, experiencing VAC models, cycling to explore Muong villages, enjoying cuisine, participating in folk games, Mo Muong nights and soaking feet in medicinal leaves.
In parallel with product development, the locality builds the Muong Coc Refill Station model - the first free water supply station towards the Net Zero goal, and at the same time implements a set of "5 no" criteria including no dirty food, no toxic chemicals, no disposable plastic waste, no fading of Muong cultural identity and no development of tourism products that are far from community life.
Deputy Director of Hanoi Department of Tourism Tran Trung Hieu said that Muong Coc has formed a relatively complete community tourism ecosystem with 26 households participating in providing services, a system of homestays, farmstays, bicycle routes, trekking, experiential programs and nearly 60 digitized resource points.
These are important factors that create the unique identity of Muong Coc, in line with the trend of experiential and sustainable tourism that is increasingly being interested by domestic and international tourists," Mr. Tran Trung Hieu emphasized.
According to Chairman of My Duc Commune People's Committee Nguyen Quang Duong, the locality has identified community tourism development as a key task, has established a Coordinating Committee, organized about 8 skills training classes for people and mobilized the community to participate in landscape improvement, environmental protection, and tourism product development. Up to now, Muong Coc has formed a destination identification system, communication system, accommodation models, model tours and OCOP products, creating a foundation for sustainable tourism development.
Expanding links, towards welcoming international visitors
Assessing the potential of the destination, Mr. Vu Van Tuyen, Director of Travelogy Vietnam, said that Muong Coc has the advantage of being located on the axis connecting with Perfume Pagoda, Mai Chau, Pu Luong and many tourist destinations in the Northwest, creating favorable conditions to welcome visitors from Hanoi and international visitors.
Muong Coc has three strengths. The first is natural resources with landscapes that can become a'Ha Long on land'. The second is a place that still preserves many folk knowledge and Muong cultural space. The third is a fairly complete tourism product system with 8 bicycle routes, 8 tour programs, 2 trekking routes and many unique experiences," Mr. Vu Van Tuyen shared.
According to Mr. Tuyen, the entire destination identification system, introduction documents in Vietnamese, English, French and tour programs have been digitized to serve market promotion. Notably, immediately after receiving product dossiers, a tourism business in Thailand decided to put Muong Coc on the international tourism e-commerce platform.
Immediately after the announcement, Muong Coc will start welcoming the first tourist groups through this platform," he said.
Vice Chairman of Hanoi Tourism Association Dang Le Trung Hieu said that the formation of Muong Coc community tourism product is proof of Hanoi's green tourism development orientation.
However, according to him, making a destination is very difficult, but maintaining the vitality of the destination is even more difficult. Therefore, the locality needs to continue to preserve Muong cultural identity, take the people as the subjects and develop authentic experiences to create long-term attraction.
At the conference, the Coordinating Board of Muong Coc Community Tourist Destination signed a memorandum of understanding on cooperation with travel businesses to develop products and expand the tourist market.
According to the Hanoi Department of Tourism, strengthening the linkage between management agencies, businesses and the community will create a foundation for Muong Coc to gradually become a typical community tourism model of the Capital, and soon welcome the first international tourist groups in the near future.
