Tourists eat and stay with the residents of the old town
On September 16, speaking with Lao Dong, Mr. Nguyen Van Lanh - Vice Chairman of the People's Committee of Hoi An City, Quang Nam said that the whole city currently has 400 - 500 accommodation service establishments (homestay), outside the old town. In area 1 (core area), there is no such service.
In early May 2024, Hoi An issued a notice to pilot a model of accommodation and experiences with the residents of the ancient town. Tourists will experience the food, accommodation, living habits and work of the locals.
“Our wish is to create a unique new tourism product, to maximize the potential of the old town,” Mr. Lanh emphasized.
According to regulations, the business entity of the experiential accommodation model must be a local resident, have a permanent address in Hoi An ancient town and actually live in the house where the activity is planned to be held; achieve the status of a typical cultural family (CF) and have prestige in the local community.
Prioritize and encourage households to organize their lives closely related to production and business activities in traditional industries and occupations; have cultural and artistic activities for tourists to participate in and experience.
However, after 4 months of pilot implementation, only 1 household in Hoi An ancient town registered for this type.
Relax the criteria
According to Hoi An leaders, through actual implementation, the city found that some contents were not really suitable, so it adjusted the regulations in the direction of relaxing the criteria.
“Previously, we stipulated that the business entity of the model must be a typical cultural family - a household that has achieved the title of cultural family for 3 years or more, and has been voted by the community. This is very “tense”, because the current quota of typical cultural families is limited in quantity, each residential area only has 1 household voted as a typical cultural family every year.
This unintentionally becomes a constraint, hindering households who want to do business in experiential accommodation services in the old town," Mr. Lanh explained.
Meanwhile, the new regulation amends the criteria for cultural families in an "open" direction, only requiring households to be recognized as cultural families for 3 consecutive years, even if they have not been voted by the community as exemplary cultural families.
According to Mr. Nguyen Van Lanh, in reality, these regulations are not suitable outside the old quarter.
Only within the core area of the old town are there such strict regulations. Because this is a cultural tourism product, focusing on the visitor experience, not purely an accommodation service.
Responding to Lao Dong about the fact that Hoi An has a rate of more than 95% of cultural family, but so far only one household in the old town has registered for the model of welcoming visitors to experience, Mr. Lanh said that people are still not really interested. Because a house in the old town for rent and business will bring higher profits than this model.
According to a resident of Hoi An ancient town, the rental price for a 60m2 house on Tran Phu street, near the Japanese Covered Bridge, is about 120 million VND/month. A house with 2 street frontages has a rental price one and a half times higher.
“Therefore, the government must actively encourage, especially households with ancient houses and traditional businesses such as lanterns, so that tourists can experience the culture. Our wish is to deploy this service, but not on a large scale,” said the leader of Hoi An City.
