On December 2, Da Lat City People's Committee coordinated with Tuoi Tre newspaper to organize a workshop on "Green tourism - sustainable development" and summarize 20 years of implementing the "Green Brand" program.
Da Lat needs to develop a set of "green" tourism criteria
Speaking at the opening of the workshop, Mr. Dang Quang Tu, Chairman of the People's Committee of Da Lat City, said that in recent years, Da Lat has been recognized by domestic and international organizations as a "Smart City", "Clean Tourism City 2022-2024", one of the 12 most romantic destinations in Asia, honored by UNESCO, and joined the UNESCO Creative Cities Network in the field of music.
Mr. Dang Quang Tu, Chairman of Da Lat City People's Committee.
"Currently, developing green and sustainable tourism is an important goal of Da Lat, building Da Lat into one of the green tourist cities of the country based on the strengths of the locality's potential and characteristics," said Mr. Tu.
Contributing his opinion at the conference, Mr. Cao The Anh, Vice President of Lam Dong Tourism Association, affirmed that developing Da Lat tourism in the direction of sustainable green tourism is one of the most important issues in the process of building Da Lat into a high-quality, modern, international tourist city.
The Vice President of the Provincial Tourism Association shared that people think Da Lat is a cheap tourism destination, but cheap tourism will sooner or later have consequences and is difficult to sustain. Therefore, Da Lat City needs to develop and apply a set of sustainable development criteria for relevant parties including the government (policy), tourism businesses and non-tourism investment businesses.
Da Lat authorities have identified building a green, sustainable tourism industry as a key goal.
Regarding the issue of linkage and development cooperation, according to the representative of Lam Dong Tourism Association, Da Lat approaches in two directions. The first is the linkage within the Da Lat destination region, including building green Da Lat tourism products, ensuring the principles of sustainable and high-quality Da Lat tourism development, prioritizing the development of green growth tourism types, positioning and elevating the sustainable green Da Lat destination.
The second is the connection and cooperation between Da Lat and Lam Dong regions according to tourism routes, tourism products, domestic and international tourism areas. "Regional connection will help us not to depend on any market, reducing risks," said Mr. Anh.
Do not disrupt the lives of Dalat people
Expected at the conference is the speech of Mr. Nguyen Chau A, General Director of Oxalis Company, the enterprise that brought Tan Hoa Tourist Village to receive the award for Best Tourism Village in the world in 2023 (Best Tourism Village) organized by the World Tourism Organization (UNWTO). This is the only village in Vietnam voted by UNWTO among the list of 260 villages from 60 countries participating in the 2023 award.
Mr. A shared that it took more than 12 years to turn Tan Hoa from a small village that lived with big floods every year into the best tourist village in the world when the people mainly did farming work and were not familiar with the tourism service style.
Mr. Nguyen Chau A at the workshop.
From flood-proof houses, the businessman convinced and supported them to convert some into homestays to serve tourists, organize meals at people's homes for guests, recruit and train local workers. Up to now, the company has paid about 10 billion VND/year for these services of the people. From a small countryside, Tan Hoa has become a "hot" destination after being honored as a world tourist village, the lives of the people have changed.
However, to do community tourism in a green and friendly direction, Mr. Chau A's principle is not to disrupt the lives, culture and characteristics of the people because these characteristics are the core of local tourism.
"Let's think, today a bowl of pho costs 20,000 VND. When there are more customers, the price of a bowl of pho increases to 50,000 VND. Tourists can afford it, but where do the locals get the money to cover that increase?" - Mr. Chau A raised the issue.
For community tourism, the priority is to protect the community in development. In addition, to have sustainable green and environmentally friendly community tourism, it is necessary to have the cooperation of 3 parties: the government - potential businesses - the community. If each of the above subjects is separated, it cannot be done.
Mr. Nguyen Van Hanh, a sustainable development expert who prepared the dossier for Tan Hoa village to be recognized as a world tourist village, believes that Da Lat has a lot of potential and strengths to win this award.
To develop green tourism, Da Lat needs to develop and apply a specific set of criteria.
"Many people ask what makes Da Lat different from other destinations in Vietnam? In my opinion, Da Lat today combines all the elements of nature, climate, architecture, unique culture, friendly people, rich cuisine, and diverse tourism activities."
The problem is that Da Lat is already beautiful and unique, how to make Da Lat better, greener and more sustainable in its development process. If the elements that make up Da Lat are damaged, the balance will be lost and it will no longer be sustainable.
Mr. Nguyen Chau A is also the person who developed the Tu Lan cave exploration tour and the "director" who brought the blockbuster film crew "Kong: Skull Island" to film in Quang Binh. He is one of the famous people on the continent in the business of adventure tourism activities.
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