Hai Phong craft villages in tourism push
07/10/07 (GMT+7)
Hai Phong craft villages in tourism, Boasting 20 traditional craft villages within easy reach, Haib Phong City plans to make the villages the latest focus of its tourism promotion.
Traditional craft villages have recently received tens of billions of dong from the city’s budget to be spent on renewal and development projects.
The city has also paid close attention to upgrading the villages’ infrastructure, and has made special efforts to encourage well-known craftsmen in the region to set up shop in the villages.
The Hai Phong Craftsmen’s Association, currently 125 members strong, was established with a view to preserving and transmitting artisanal secrets and developing traditional handicrafts. Prestigious craftsmen also work in the village as special tourist guides.
Many traditional craft village tours have been tied into the existing market for eco-tourism. Tours like "Get to Know the Song Hong (Red River) Delta’s Culture" and "Countryside Travel" have introduced many visitors, especially foreign tourists, to well-known craft villages such as Trang Kenh in the Thuy Nguyen District (stone-carving), Dai Loc in the Kien Thuy District (silk-weaving), and Bao Ha in the Vinh Bao District (traditional sculpture).
Other traditional craft villages in the area include Cao Nhan (areca), Minh Tan (ceramics), My Dong (metal casting), Xuan La (weaving), and Nhan Muc, a village renowned for its water puppet theatre.
Craft-village tourism, however, has not yet managed to establish a distinctive position in the market, one that would continue to attract more visitors, due to the lack of a long-term development strategy.
Aside from the operational drawbacks of small scale and unreliable product quality, traditional craft villages are mainly losing potential tourists due to insufficient marketing and promotion.
In order to give traditional craft village tourism an opportunity to flourish and develop sustainably into the future, Hai Phong and its surrounding localities need to identify specific strategies for promoting craft villages in combination with other cultural- and eco-tourism destinations; ensure environmentally-sound and hygienic conditions; increase the total number of tours available; offer attractive and competitively-priced tours; boost promotion by launching web sites to provide information about the villages; and train more workers for this particular area of the tourism sector.
More importantly, the local people should be made aware of the benefits gained from craft village tourism, so that they will actively welcome visitors to their village and make greater efforts to preserve and develop their unique cultural forms.
Only when these strategies are implemented will Hai Phong’s traditional craft villages truly find themselves "on the map".
(Source: Viet Nam News)
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