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| Visitors experiencing cooking traditional Hue dishes |
Exciting experiences
One morning in Thuy Bieu (Thuy Xuan Ward), in an old ruong house, with a cup of hot tea and a plate of fruits picked from his garden, Mr. Ho Xuan Dai, the owner of Xuan Dai garden-house, gently begun the story in a deep and warm voice: “We want visitors to enjoy Hue cuisine the way locals do. Through every step of the cooking process, they will feel the sophistication of Hue people.”
“Through every step...” as Mr. Dai said, visitors will follow the owner to the early market, selecting every bunch of vegetables, fig, and fresh fish, then return to the small kitchen filled with the scent of wood. A simple Hue meal with braised fish, simmered pork, boiled vegetables, and mixed fig suddenly becomes a memorable experience, because the cook not only learns the dishes, but also listens to the stories of the land and people here.
Mr. Pierre Laurent, a French visitor, shared: “Going to the market like a local is a great experience. I love the freshness of everything, and I am excited to know that I will cook them myself.”
According to Tran Huu Phuoc, a tour guide, what attracts visitors is not just the fruit trees or the ancient ruong houses, but the sincerity of the local people. He said that visitors like the rustic and natural atmosphere. When they come here, they are welcomed like family members.
Not only in Thuy Bieu, the journey to Ngu My Thanh (Dan Dien Commune) opens up a different world for visitors: the vast space of Tam Giang Lagoon. Here, the locals live entirely on fishing. Now, they are putting their generational experience into tourism: rowing boats, casting nets, stand-up paddling, exploring lagoon ecology… allowing visitors to truly “experience local life firsthand, understand it firsthand”.
Mr. Ngo Chien, one of the first people to develop tourism in Ngu My Thanh, shared: “In the past, we relied on fishing for a living; now that tourism is developing, the locals not only have a better income, but also have an opportunity to promote their homeland. Thanks to this, people are more concerned about preserving environmental sanitation. They understand that tourism will only thrive if the environment is protected.”
Developing green tourism
The green tourism trend is growing. Accordingly, “A Net Zero tourism day in Hue” - a tour implemented by iVietnam Travel - is a pioneering landmark. Participating in this tour, visitors must travel by bicycle, electric car; use glass bottles instead of plastic ones; and carry fabric bags instead of nylon bags. They go SUP boarding to collect trash on the Huong River, follow a plant-based diet, and plant mangroves in the lagoon area. Ms. Ngo Hoang Nguyen Anh, CEO of iVietnam Travel, explained: “The Net Zero tour aims to minimize carbon emissions. We would hope visitors to slow down their ways of life and become more conscious of the environment. This is how tourism contributes to combating climate change.”
However, community tourism in the villages also faces many limitations: locals lack professional skills, facilities are rudimentary, products have not been chained together, and there is a lack of unified procedures. To address these difficulties, the city has included measures in the plan for 2025 - 2030 to enhance the quality of services and tourism with the goal of: 100% of facility owners being professionally trained, 80% of workers having their skills improved, training on communication, water safety, and product development being organized, ... to shift from spontaneous to professional tourism practices.
According to Ms. Tran Thi Hoai Tram, Director of the Department of Tourism, sustainable community tourism requires improving service quality, standardizing products, establishing mechanisms to support businesses in green transition, and investing in tourism environment and monitoring infrastructure. The coordination among management agencies, businesses, and the community is the decisive factor for green tourism to develop in the right direction, and become Hue's long-term internal strength.