"Positioning" the brand for community tourism - Lang Son Newspaper and Radio and Television Station

Representatives of Lang Son province and Vietnamese units received the ASEAN Tourism Award 2025 at the ASEAN Tourism Forum (ATF) in Malaysia.

Developing community tourism into a typical product of the province

In recent years, the provincial tourism industry has been implementing many important solutions in positioning the province's tourism brand, especially building and affirming the DLCCĐ brand. Mr. Luu Ba Mac, Deputy Director of the Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism (VHTT&DL), said: In recent years, the development of DLCCĐ products has been focused on promoting through solutions such as: building mechanisms and policies, investing in tourism infrastructure, training human resources and improving service quality. Currently, in the province, there are 6 DLCCĐ points recognized by the Provincial People's Committee. The average income of households providing accommodation tourism services (Homestay) is on average 70 to 90 million VND/year, with some households achieving revenue of over 100 million VND/year.

In order to develop community-based tourism into a typical and distinctive tourism brand, since 2023, the province has implemented the construction of community-based tourism according to ASEAN standards in Bac Quynh community-based tourism village, Bac Son district and Huu Lien district, Huu Lung district. Accordingly, the relevant authorities have invited the Accommodation Management Department - National Tourism Administration to survey and provide initial guidance on the criteria; select and support 12 households to participate in implementing the model of homestays with rooms for tourists to rent that meet ASEAN standards; build a system of internal signboards at community-based tourism sites; train 2 classes for 110 trainees who are members of the management board on tourism site management and tourism program operations; support 12 sets of tools and equipment to standardize food and beverage services; support the construction of an experiential service model for tourists, etc.

With the continuous efforts of all levels, sectors, businesses and people, on January 21, 2025, Lang Son won 2 international tourism awards including: ASEAN Community Tourism Award - ASEAN CBT for Huu Lien Community Tourism Site (Huu Lien Commune, Huu Lung District) and ASEAN Homestay Award for Yen Thinh Commune Homestay Cluster (Huu Lung District). These awards are not only the pride of Lang Son people but also the motivation for all levels, sectors and communities to continue investing and developing tourism sustainably.

Mr. Ngo At Mao, Yen Thinh commune, Huu Lung district said: To develop a standard homestay, from 2022 to now, the family has invested over 1 billion VND to build roads, upgrade the accommodation area to be more comfortable and invest in some more modern equipment to standardize the facilities... thanks to that, the homestay now attracts more tourists. My family is also very happy and proud to be one of the homestays receiving the ASEAN homestay award. This is a great encouragement for us to continue to improve the quality of service, bringing visitors memorable experiences about the culture and people of Lang Son.

Community-based tourism products are honored, contributing significantly to affirming the province's community-based tourism brand, attracting a large number of tourists. The clearest evidence is the sharp increase in the number of tourists to Lang Son (nearly 2 million in the first quarter of 2025). Of which, tourists to Huu Lung reached over 295,000. Particularly, visitors experiencing and staying at the Community-based Tourism Village in Huu Lien and Yen Thinh communes are estimated at over 45,000. Total tourism revenue of the whole district is estimated at 61 billion VND.

Mr. Khong Hong Minh, Head of the Department of Culture, Science and Information of Huu Lung district, said: The ASEAN Tourism Award is a great opportunity to promote and develop community-based tourism in Huu Lung district, as well as raise awareness and responsibility in the work of preserving and promoting cultural heritage values. Through the implementation process, we have drawn some important lessons such as: close coordination between specialized agencies, local authorities and people; focusing on human resource training, improving the quality of services and tourism products. In particular, community-based tourism must be closely linked to the preservation and promotion of traditional cultural values ​​of ethnic communities, thereby creating unique tourism products. In the future, we will continue to improve the quality of services, expand tourism types and build new tourism products to attract more tourists.

Continue to affirm the brand

Entering 2025, in order to strive to achieve the goal of welcoming 4.4 million tourists, the provincial tourism industry has developed a plan with key tasks to attract tourists. Specifically, the Provincial People's Committee has issued a plan to develop tourism in Lang Son province in 2025. Among them, there is the task of continuing to improve and develop according to the criteria of the community tourism village according to ASEAN standards, while promoting the certification mark that has been protected by intellectual property rights. For districts that already have community tourism sites (Bac Son, Binh Gia, Huu Lung); continue to increase the allocation of infrastructure investment capital to support community tourism development in the area; have specific solutions to promote and mobilize to expand the scale and number of households participating in the community tourism model.

UNESCO expert team surveyed a homestay at Quynh Son Community Tourism Village, Bac Quynh Commune, Bac Son District

Ms. Duong Hong Hanh, Deputy Head of the Department of Culture, Science and Information of Bac Son district, said: In order to meet the criteria of a community-based tourism village meeting ASEAN standards, in the past, the department has coordinated with the People's Committee of Bac Quynh commune to review and evaluate according to the standards and deploy for 5 households providing homestay tourism services at the tourist destination to register to build houses with rooms for tourists to rent according to ASEAN standards; coordinate to organize training for households participating in building houses with rooms for tourists to rent according to ASEAN standards and households providing homestay accommodation services in the area... In the coming time, we will continue to send 9 households providing homestay services to participate in training to improve the quality of community-based tourism human resources meeting ASEAN standards. At the same time, we will continue to guide the People's Committee of Bac Quynh commune to implement and complete the 10 standards, striving to build to meet ASEAN standards according to the set plan.

It can be seen that international tourism titles also create pressure requiring the provincial tourism industry to continue to implement synchronous solutions from awareness to action, investing more completely in infrastructure, human resources, tourism products and service quality to "position" a strong brand for Lang Son tourism.

Dr. Nguyen Thanh Nam, Hanoi University of Culture, said: Based on the achievements in building and developing community-based tourism products in Lang Son in the past time, the development of community-based tourism products in the province in the next phase needs to focus on two directions: renewing existing tourism products and developing new tourism products. With the first direction, the province needs to conduct a survey of community-based tourism customers, managers, and people on their satisfaction level and initiatives to renew tourism products to have a scientific and practical basis, ensuring that the renewal meets the needs and consumption trends of tourists. For the second direction, the province needs to rely on the results of inventory, assessment, classification of tourism resources and orientations of tourism product groups according to the province's tourism development policy to have a plan to exploit and build tourism products in accordance with original values.

We believe that, with a methodical development strategy and the cooperation of the community, the province's community tourism products will continue to reap new successes, becoming an attractive destination on the Vietnamese and international tourism map.

Source: https://baolangson.vn/giai-thuong-quoc-te-gop-phan-dinh-vi-thuong-hieu-du-lich-cong-dong-lang-son-5043459.html