Yen Bai (VNA) – The northwestern mountainous province of Yen Bai, which has emerged as an attractive destination, plans to turn its heritage into an "asset," by continuing to implement comprehensive policies to support tourism d🃏ꦦevelopment and further invest in creating new tourism offerings in 2025.

Distinctive culture elevates tourism

Many areas in Yen Bai boast a mild climate year-round, stunning natural landscapes, and the unique cultural heritage of ethnic minorities. These attributes have shaped distinctive tourism products. With the motto of "using culture to develop tourism, and tourism to preserve culture," Yen Bai has focused on preserving and promoting cultural heritage and landmarks while integrating them with tourism to generate new livelihoods for local communities. Vu Thi Mai Oanh, Deputy Director of the Department of Culture, Sports, and Tourism of Yen Bai, emphasised that in addition to its natural advantages, the province is home to a vast cultural treasure emanating from its various ethnic groups. Each traditional cultural heritage is not only a source of pride for the local people but also a powerful tourism resource that helps define and elevate Yen Bai's tourism brand, presenting the province as a cultural hub for domestic and international visitors. Yen Bai currently has 574 intangible cultural heritage sites, including one UNESCO-recognised heritage and six national heritages. As a result, visitors to Yen Bai can immerse themselves in the vibrant culture of ethnic minorities through the Gau Tao Festival, Khen Mong (the Mong group’s panpipe) Festival, Com Moi (New Rice) Festival, Tang Cau Festival, Cap Sac Festival, Terraced Rice Field Festival, and the “Flying on Golden Season” Paragliding Festival. Visitors can also enjoy traditional foods unique to the highlands, such as five-colour steamed sticky rice, black sticky rice cakes, stream moss, spicy bamboo shoots, stream duck, ant eggs, and Shan Tuyet tea. Yen Bai has been expanding tourism products into year round activities, including mountain climbing, scenic checkpoints, wellness tourism, and cultural and religious experiences. In Mu Cang Chai district, more than 20 new tourism products have been launched in the past two years, including eco-tourism to view the terraced rice fields, which are a national heritage site. In addition, the "Step on the Clouds" Mountain Climbing Competition, held at Ta Xua Peak in Tram Tau district for the past two years, attracts thousands of visitors. This new adventure tourism product allows participants to traverse a 12 km steep mountain trail to experience the exhilarating journey in conquering the 2,865-meter peak, passing through a forest of ancient Do Quyen (rhododendron) trees covered with moss. To continue transforming heritage into "assets," Yen Bai will invest further in creating new tourism types, aiming to have at least one tourism product in every commune. In 2024, 16 new tourism products were recognised, leading to a record increase in tourism numbers. The province welcomed over 2.1 million visitors and generated nearly 1.8 trillion VND (70.88 million USD) in revenue, reaching 120% of the target.

Effective market stimulation solutions

In 2024, Yen Bai focused on digital transformation in tourism, integrating information about tourist destinations with platforms like the Yen Bai tourism Fanpage, the YenBai-S digital citizen app, the provincial website, and other social media platforms. The province also undertaken branding, and marketing through events, festivals, fairs, domestic and international media, and the internet, to spread the word about Yen Bai’s unique, high-quality tourism products with a focus on green, cultural, and exploratory tourism. Yen Bai has introduced many policies to support tourism development, including infrastructure investment, the establishment of 231 cultural teams from ethnic minorities like the Mong, Thai, Muong, Tay, and Cao Lan, waste collection in tourism community areas, development of human resources, and the preservation of intangible cultural heritage. In 2025, Yen Bai will support the organisation of over 40 traditional festivals and the development of 26 traditional craft villages serving tourism, helping to shape new and distinctive tourism products. Nong Viet Yen, Director of the Department of Culture, Sports, and Tourism of Yen Bai, stated that tourism is expected to become a key economic sector for the province. The goal is to continue developing high-quality tourism products associated with the preservation and promotion of Yen Bai's distinctive cultural values. Each tourism product will aim to provide tourists with unique and exciting experiences, making sure that Yen Bai remains one of the top tourism destinations in the Northwestern region of Vietnam./.