Binh Thuan (VNA) -🦂 Ecotourism in association with agriculture and rural areas has been taken as one of the five key products in Vietnam’s tourism development strategy.

Over the recent years, it has been a focus to attract visitors, and many products imbued with the typical identities of the agricultural civilisation of each area have drawn large crowds of tourists, both domestic and foreign. Located in the southernmost part of the central coastal area and bordering the eastern part of the south, the Central Highlands and the East Sea, the province is blessed with abundant natural resources on the land and in the sea. Besides long-established tourism products such as golf, sea resort, marine sports and trekking, Binh Thuan province is focusing its efforts on developing those in association with agricultural production. The development of this product is expected to open up a new and sustainable direction for the tourism sector, thus bringing into play the province’s potential and advantages. Along with the diversity in topography, land and resources, Binh Thuan boasts 270,000 ha of land for agriculture production with the typical cultivation of rice, maize, grape, and especially dragon fruit. This is a huge advantage for Binh Thuan to utilise and develop tourism in association with sustainable agriculture. In addition, the province is pushing up the linkage between state management offices and locals, scientists, and travel firms in order to improve the quality of every destination. Utilising the advantages available, at the end of last year, the information centre for tourism promotion of Binh Thuan province launched a community-based tourism model of “experiencing dragon fruit cultivation” with villagers in Ham Thuan Nam district, dubbed as the ‘dragon fruit capital” of Binh Thuan. Fledging as it is, the model has initially created an interesting experience for both domestic and foreign tourists. Director of the centre Vo Xuan Nghia said this is a new product in a chain of agriculture-based tourism ones developed by Binh Thuan province. Through this, the centre hopes to broaden and develop more products, thus raising incomes for locals in the province’s rural, far-flung areas. Reality has shown that agriculture-based tourism has brought about positive socio-economic fruits for many localities and firms. The direct participation of farmers has added diversity and attraction to tourism products and, at the same time, higher incomes for farmers. Besides, this also helps farmers apply technical advances for a cleaner production. Victoria Norman from Russia was excited with her experience in dragon fruit cultivation. Not only enjoying dragon fruit products right in the garden, tourists can also directly experience the daily life of farmers. The Russian tourist said that after the tour, she felt closer to the village and villagers. Nguyen Van Chin, the owner of a household participating in the building of this tourism model, said he had joined study tours to many other localities. The building of the model does not only bring income to his household but also helps popularise Binh Thuan dragon fruit. Joining the model, he has been strictly observing the clean production under the VietGap standards, ensuring production safety and that for tourists. Besides tours to dragon fruit gardens, a number of others in association with agriculture are now conducted in Binh Thuan province. However, those products are generally spontaneous and short of investment to infrastructure and services. Binh Thuan’s potential for developing agriculture-based ecotourism is huge. Director Nghia said that in the time to come, besides multiplying the model of the tour to dragon fruit gardens, the province will continue studying the development of community-based tourism and ecotourism in areas inhabited by ethnic minority groups and far-flung ones in Phan Tien, Phan Dung and Da Mi. This is expected to help popularise the province’s natural, cultural and human values, thus generating incomes for the community and creating more tourism product for Binh Thuan, he said./.