In recent years, when visiting Buon Ma Thuot city (Dak Lak), tourists cannot miss Buon Ma Thuot coffee book street, a cultural space for book lovers and those who want to learn about the special coffee flavor of the Central Highlands.
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| A corner of Buon Ma Thuot's book and coffee street welcomes the Year of the Dragon 2024. (Photo: HUY CHIEN) |
Facing many challenges due to the prolonged impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, Buon Ma Thuot Coffee Book Street is making efforts to renew itself to truly become a unique cultural and tourist highlight of the city.
The Buon Ma Thuot Coffee Book Street Project was approved in Decision No. 3400/QD-UBND of the People's Committee of Dak Lak province.
Accordingly, the book street started construction in December 2018 in alley 2 Phan Chu Trinh street connecting to Nguyen Tat Thanh street, behind Buon Ma Thuot Cathedral.
Only about 100 meters long, but since its official opening (March 2019, on the occasion of Dak Lak province organizing the 7th Buon Ma Thuot Coffee Festival), Buon Ma Thuot Coffee Book Street has gradually affirmed its position in creating and honoring reading culture, contributing to spreading and promoting the beauty of traditional Central Highlands culture to tourists and the community.
With nearly 20 booths with impressive designs, featuring local culture, divided into areas: Reading books, drinking coffee, displaying souvenirs, entertainment areas, cuisine ..., the book street quickly became a new meeting place not only for young people but also for families, where adults can sip coffee and read books, while children can freely play, fostering a love of books and pride in their homeland.
The highlight of the book street is the appearance of murals on the green walking path, depicting the beautiful scenery of the Central Highlands and the vibrant culture of the Ede people, creating extremely attractive "check-in" corners, especially for young people.
During the initial period of operation, cultural and artistic events and activities were regularly organized at the book street such as:
Book launches, author and work introductions, painting contests, exhibitions, music programs, traditional costume shows, fairs introducing Central Highlands products, etc.; combined with regular maintenance of community groups: Book lovers community, Calligraphy club, Music lovers community, etc., have helped the number of visitors to Buon Ma Thuot coffee book street increase day by day.
Before the pandemic, the book street was estimated to receive an average of 600 visitors per day. On event days, this number doubled; during peak times such as Christmas, Book Festival, Kindness Green Market, etc., the number of visitors to the book street reached 3,500.
However, after a year of bustling activities, the Covid-19 pandemic struck, causing the book street space to face a quiet and desolate situation.
Ms. Hoang Thi Thuy, Director of Buon Ma Thuot Coffee Book Street Company Limited, said that during the outbreak, stalls were forced to stop operating for a long time, causing serious impacts on investors and stall owners. This is the biggest reason why the book street fell into a deserted state and had long-term effects after the epidemic.
Entering 2023, the number of visitors to the book street has changed, but is still significantly lower than before the pandemic. Although the contract to use the premises is still valid, many stalls have had to close due to business losses.
The book street management board has tried to promote the activities, but the small number of remaining booths cannot create enough strong energy as in the beginning, leading to the situation where the number of readers and visitors to the book street gradually decreases.
With the determination to restore vitality to Buon Ma Thuot Coffee Book Street, an action program has been built to bring the book street into a new phase, with more diverse and interesting experiences, truly becoming a cultural and tourist attraction.
At the end of 2023, the operating unit carried out internal restructuring, reforming the apparatus from leaders to employees directly working at the Book Street Management Board to improve the professionalism of the human resources team, ensure the linking role as well as increase support for booths in the book street.
Entering a new phase, from 2024, the operating unit has determined to increase investment to change the appearance of the entire route to attract operators to operate on the book street, re-plan the functional cluster towards focusing on indigenous cultural values, increase book cafes, education fields on skills and experiences...
Notably, a list of quarterly, monthly, and weekly events and activities of the book street throughout 2024 has been planned to attract community participation, such as:
- Promote reading culture through spring books, organize New Year's Eve events to welcome the Year of the Dragon 2024 (February);
- Cultural program, book exhibition about Buon Ma Thuot, the land of love (March);
- National History Book Day on the occasion of Hung King's death anniversary, reading culture festival (April);
- Children's story telling contest with Uncle Ho (May);
- Children's Book Week, Book and Press Day (June);
- Week of introducing Central Highlands specialties, paying tribute to war invalids and martyrs (July);
- Book Day about family love and parental merit (August);
- Mid-Autumn Festival Event (September);
- Vietnamese Women's Book Day (October);
- Teachers' Charter Book Day (November);
- People's Army Book Day, Christmas Book Week (December)...
With these efforts, it is hoped that Buon Ma Thuot Coffee Book Street will strongly innovate, truly becoming an attractive cultural experience destination, where reading culture is honored, coffee culture and traditional culture of the Central Highlands shine...
Source: https://nhandan.vn/diem-den-van-hoa-tai-thanh-pho-buon-ma-thuot-post795586.html
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