The head of the commune goes first
In recent days, the "Secretary of Muong Land" channel of Mr. Nguyen Duy Tu - Secretary of the Party Committee of Van Son commune, Phu Tho province - has attracted attention on social networks when continuously posting videos introducing the scenery, life and tourism potential of the locality.
From his phone and field trips, the head of Van Son commune is directly stepping into cyberspace to tell the story of his homeland.
Talking to PV, Mr. Nguyen Duy Tu said that he came to work in Van Son from July 1, 2025, in the context of entering the stage of operating the two-level government model.
Nearly a year attached to the grassroots, what worries him is that Van Son still faces many difficulties, people's lives are still poor, but there is still a lot of potential that has not been awakened.
If I don't go, don't work, who knows how beautiful our Van Son is," Mr. Tu confided.
According to him, making videos started from a very simple thought, to let more people know about Van Son. When tourists return, people have the opportunity to do food services, accommodation, and sell agricultural products, thereby having more livelihoods.
Van Son has a cool climate, many cloud hunting spots, streams and waterfalls, caves and Muong cultural identity.
Many people call this place the "roof of Muong land", a land that can develop ecotourism, weekend resorts, trekking and community tourism.
However, for a long time, tourism activities here have remained fragmented and small-scale; households doing homestays are not many, and services have not become chains.
Therefore, Mr. Tu chose to start from the smallest things. He went to each point, filmed the beautiful scenery, introduced the route, and talked about the potential of each village, each waterfall, and each cloud hunting spot.
The "rough gems" waiting to be awakened
The effect from the videos came quite quickly. According to Mr. Tu, after Van Son's image was spread, the number of people coming to the locality increased significantly.
Another signal that makes the commune government more confident in this direction is that in just about a week after the videos were watched, 5 more households registered to become homestays.
Previously, mobilizing people to invest in community tourism was not easy, because people were still hesitant to change, lacked capital, lacked skills and did not clearly see the effectiveness.
Currently, the number of homestay households that meet the conditions for business licenses, fire prevention and fighting, and food safety in the area is not large.
The commune sets a target to develop about 20 more homestays each year, gradually forming a community accommodation system to retain tourists.
In the immediate future, the locality is considering supporting a part of the initial items such as blankets, sheets, and pillows for homestay households. In the long term, the commune plans to build a community tourism development project, coordinating with the Social Policy Bank so that people can access preferential capital sources.
Highland people have great difficulties in terms of capital. If we want people to boldly build homestays and services, there must be appropriate support mechanisms, training, orientation and capital so that they can feel secure in investing," Mr. Tu said.
However, the Secretary of Van Son commune also acknowledged that promotion is just the beginning. For tourism to develop sustainably, transportation infrastructure and destination infrastructure are still a big problem.
In particular, the main road to Van Son and the connecting axis to Thanh Hoa and Pu Luong play an important role in opening an inter-regional tourism corridor.
If transportation is convenient, tourists can connect Van Son with other famous destinations, instead of considering it as an isolated point.
According to him, Van Son currently has many potential destinations such as Mam Xoi hill, the Air Defense area in Lo hamlet, cloud hunting spots, stream and waterfall system, national scenic spot Nam Son cave, provincial scenic spot Nui Kien cave and trekking routes along streams and through forests.
Some places have very beautiful landscapes but have not been exploited due to lack of access roads, lack of infrastructure or management mechanisms.
He calls them the "rough gems" of Van Son. To turn potential into livelihoods, there needs to be investment, planning, people participating and appropriate promotion methods.
In the upcoming plan, the commune will continue to survey new trekking routes, including routes associated with ancient nghiến trees over a thousand years old, then make introductory videos to invite young tourists who love nature and explore.
