Elevating tourism level in Lac Duong district adjacent to Da Lat city

Located adjacent to Dalat city, Lạc Dương is recognized as having many advantages in tourism development. In a recent document, Lạc Dương district People’s Committee has stated: “Lạc Dương District has identified its potential advantages and strong points in tourism and based on this basis, the development strategy of district tourism is established, that is: pushing tourism to be the key economic sector. Maximizing tourism potential; forming eco-tourism sites, cultural tourism. Associating business travel activities of economic entities with the supply of tourism products from communities, enabling poor people to participate in providing travel products to improve ethnic people’s lives, eradicating hunger and alleviating poverty”.

Lac Duong District is particularly interested is the diversification of tourism products

To bring tourism into a key economic sector, one of the issues in which Lạc Dương District is particularly interested is the diversification of tourism products. Accordingly, to effectively exploit cultural potential of the indigenous peoples, in recent years, Lạc Dương district has incessantly encouraged and created favorable conditions for the gong & chime groups to exploit local cultural elements to serve tourists. Currently, in Lạc Dương District, there are 10 gong & chime groups that organize regular performances for tourists. In 2013, the gong & chime groups welcomed approximately 230,000 tourists , reaching a turnover of about 16 billion dong, contributing to providing job opportunities for a part of local population, at the same time, contributing to the conservation and development of cultural values of the indigenous ethnic minorities and promoting the image of Lạc Dương District to the public. Also, Lạc Dương District in recent years has given guidelines and currently continued to restore several traditional cultural festivals, ethnic sports, traditions and habits, traditional handicrafts, traditional cuisine of the indigenous peoples in order to form particular tourism products of the District. A specific data of interest: 100 billion dong from tourism and services is the figure set for the locality to endeavor to achieve in 2015. This figure is not an easy target to achieve, if Lạc Dương does not try its best.

According to the figure disclosed by Lạc Dương People’s Committee, for the period from 2011 until now, the number of tourists to Lạc Dương has increased of 12.5% on average; Revenue from tourism reached an average of 50 billion / year. Specifically, in 2013, tourist arrivals to Lạc Dương reached 1,029,000; revenue reached 58.6 billion dong – the highest number ever since. Lạc Dương district leaders have commented: ” Lạc Dương district is endowed with fresh air, cool weather all the year round, and lots of beautiful natural scenery; diverse and rich flora and fauna. With favorable natural conditions, rich, unique culture and national identity, close to major tourism markets, Lạc Dương district has favorable conditions for the development of tourism forms”.

Currently, in Lạc Dương district, there are 4 large tourist resorts, namely, Langbiang resort , Golden Valley resort , Cu Lan tourist resort and Ecotourism & Environmental Education Center of Bidoup- Nui Ba National Park. In its strategic tourism development, Lạc Dương authorities determined : “Development of human resources for tourism is one of the important tasks that Lac Duong district has set in order to improve service quality, provide better quality of tourism products and diversification of tourism products ” . With ethnic minorities to do tourism (Lạc Dương has 10 gong & chime groups specializing in musical performances for tourists ) , Lạc Dương authorities determined: ” the strength of the district is to develop cultural tourism; therefore , training , knowledge enrichment for ethnic people in doing tourism, & services is very important … ” . One of the goals set out for Lạc Dương district to 2015 is: about 50 % of human resources in the tourism sector and services are professionally trained.

Besides, Lạc Dương authorities also set a target that by 2015, the whole district will attract 1.3 to 1.4 million tourists. Hence, the number of 100 billion dong from tourism and services of Lạc Dương District would not be far-fetched figures in the coming year 2015. In the long term, the overall objective of Lạc Dương district concerning tourism is: “priority is given to the development of tourism, maximally mobilizing all resources, creating a breakthrough in the development of tourism to exploit comparative advantages of climate, landscape, ecosystems and unique cultural identity of the indigenous peoples … “.

By Khac Dung