Countryside Travelling

Countryside Travelling

Phong Nam village in the central Vietnamese City of Danang is no stranger to international tourists. It is a rare tourist haven with particular features of a countryside area. However, the village has not taken all of its advantages to become more famous to travellers. Advertising activities about the village and number of tours to the place remained modest. It rarely appears in lists of tours in Danang.

Common tours travelling around Danang are visits to Ngu Hanh Son and Hoi An and Danang - Hoi An - Dien Tho. These tours don’t surprise tourists because they are famous places. On tours to Dien Ban commune where Phuoc Kieu village is located, they are impressed that most residents there make earnings via founding activities. It means that countryside travelling is more and more attractive to international visitors. They can pick vegetables, water the plants and weave sleeping mats. They can live and share daily life with farmers in such the villages. International tourists cannotnot grasp the natural life of people in Vietnam’s countryside villages arriving in luxurious resorts.

Understanding the demand of countryside travelling for international tourists, Danang’s Tourist Department in March co-ordinated with tourism companies to open tours to the western areas, where the Truong Dinh River runs across the Hoa Bac mountainous commune.

Those tours have special features: arriving by road and coming back by river. Nature, forests and the frankness of people in the Hoa Bac commune are factors that are attracting tourists. What we need to do now is leasrn how to effectively run the tours.

Apart from Phong Nam and Hoa Bac, there many villages eligible to open tours, such as Nam O, Yen Ne, Hoa My and Nai Hien Dong. Many travelling companies agreed that those areas are suitable for tourism activities. Therefore, the co-operation between the Tourism Department and travelling companies is necessary. Danang should have a plan to develop countryside travelling into attractive tourism products with Phong Nam and Hoa Bac being initial ones. Another important factor is training for householders in such communes on how to welcome tourists.

• Thu Hong