Cultural heritage has become a valuable resource to develop community-based tourism in many localities nationwide. Efforts in adding values to the heritage in many localities have paid off with locals’ livelihood being gradually improved.

Previously, brocade weaving and household farming solely served essential needs of local residents. However, they have been promoted into interesting tourism products. For each cultural heritage owner, or says, local resident, tourism development based on cultural heritages has greatly improved their livelihood. Culture-based tourism is not only an effective way to preserve and promote traditional values of ethnic minorities but also a promising approach to improve competitive edge of tourism sector in many localities. In recent years, preserving and promoting traditional cultural values of ethnic minorities as well as improving their livelihood have been of the Party and State’s focus. In a recent seminar on ethnic minorities’ culture preservation in Hanoi, insiders agreed that the best way to preserve their culture values is to help them improve livelihood from the values themselves.-VNA