The barefoot bosses
Since 2013, the first community tourism models have been developed in Dat Mui, Ca Mau. By 2016, when the Ho Chi Minh route connected to the southernmost point of the country (where the GPS-0001 coordinate marker is located), the number of tourists has increased. As community tourism has developed strongly, local people have also become more and more methodical in tourism.
Mr. Nguyen Minh Dua's family (in Con Mui hamlet, Dat Mui commune, Ngoc Hien district) has been doing community tourism since 2019.
When he started doing tourism, Mr. Dua also visited and learned many places to find a way to develop. His family is using all the strengths of the land to serve tourists. These are tourism products that experience the traditional occupations of the local people such as: Fishing, setting crab traps; pouring traps; looking for crabs, catching snails...
Also in this hamlet, Mr. Nguyen Van Huong, after many years of working in tourism, has a fortune of billions but looks like a shrimp farmer. He goes barefoot to receive guests, catch crabs, fish, and trap quail... and also guides visitors.
Mr. Huong explained: “What boss, guys? We do community tourism. Customers come here to experience, to find the atmosphere of shrimp farming, fishing, and crab catching, but if we keep our shirt tucked in our pants and act like the boss, we will lose.”
Most of the owners of community tourism sites in Ca Mau Cape had never been on a tour before. However, after a period of participation, they know what tourists need and want to adjust.
Looking to the future
However, they have a long-term vision for tourism in Dat Mui, because Dat Mui is unique, there cannot be a second one. Tourism can only develop, not stop. That is why, after a period of working in tourism, Mr. Nguyen Hoang Hon boldly sent his child to study tourism.
Mr. Hon believes that he was able to do it thanks to the guidance of the authorities and sectors, but if he wants to develop, he must study systematically. That is why he sent his son to study Tourism Management. After graduating, Nguyen Trung Kien - his son - managed the Hoang Hon tourist site.
Trung Kien shared that every family in the locality has forest land, this is a valuable tourism product, but his peers often do not stay on forest land but work in many places.
When he returned to his hometown to join the youth union, Kien shared his idea of linking up to develop community tourism, serving tourists together and sharing benefits. Some of them recognized his strengths and together established a club with 15 members.
These people take tourists to experience and plant trees at home. Tourists who contribute to the ecological environment and regenerate nature will be more excited and this is what stimulates tourists to come back again.
Ngoc Hien District, Ca Mau Province has 9 households doing effective community tourism. In 2024, 18 more households will register to develop. In addition to experiential products, Ngoc Hien District encourages the development of more tourism products with historical elements, such as: renovating and investing in the Uncle Ho Temple to become a destination; recreating the lives of the uncles and aunts who used to be revolutionary activists in the locality so that visitors can see what it was like to "distill water in cans, and eat fish sauce when hungry".
The locality has had specific policies to support and encourage households to do community tourism, creating more and more products to serve and retain tourists when they return to the locality.
