Exploiting cultural heritage to develop tourism

Reality in Gia Lai shows that in places where people meet this requirement, turning heritage into tourism resources is easier to come true. For example, Ia Mo Nong commune (Chu Pah district) - the residential area of the Jrai Arap people, has many villages chosen to build to serve tourism activities quite early such as Phung village, Van village, Kep village. But in recent years, this community tourism address has really stood out thanks to the active activities of Ms. H'Uyen Nie - a female officer of the commune. H'Uyen Nie is an Ede ethnic, born in 1985 in Dak Lak.

In 2009, after graduating from the regular intermediate vocal class of the Military University of Culture and Arts ( Hanoi ), she worked at the Dam San Music and Dance Theater. In 2017, H'Uyen married a Jrai doctor in Ia Mo Nong commune. With her efforts, in 2018, the Ia Mo Nong Commune Braiding and Brocade Weaving Club was established in Kep 2 village. The soul of the Club is Mrs. Rocham Monh and her daughter Rocham Ha. Up to now, the Club regularly has more than 10 active artisans.

The club maintains regular activities because H'Uyen has good networking skills. In addition, she also actively promotes local products on her personal Facebook page and is shared by her friends. Thanks to that, this community tourism destination is increasingly known by many people and attracts tourists. Coming here, in addition to "hard" activities such as watching brocade weaving and knitting performances, visitors can also participate in daily activities of the Jrai people such as: fetching water from a drop of water, catching fish at Al village lake, threshing rice on the fields, picking coffee berries, performing gongs, walking on stilts, etc. depending on the needs of the guests.

In addition to the performance fee of about 150,000 VND/person/turn, people also sell souvenirs made by themselves such as: products made from dried gourds, baskets, wind chimes... selling brocade (scarf, bags...); and local specialties such as: honey soaked with male papaya flowers, one-sun-dried beef, one-sun-dried pork belly, one-sun-dried deer, yellow ant salt, aromatic grass salt, and smoked pork.

Người dân xã Ia Mơ Nông (huyện Chư Păh) có thu nhập ổn định từ phát triển du lịch cộng đồng. Ảnh: Như Nguyện

People in Ia Mo Nong commune (Chu Pah district) have a stable income from developing community tourism. Photo: Nhu Nguyen

In Kong Long Khong commune (Kbang district), A Ngui homestay operates quite well with community tourism activities, experiencing Bahnar culture thanks to the efforts of this Bahnar owner to build facilities, nurture a team of artisans and actively promote. Currently, the homestay has built 2 large stilt houses as accommodation for guests; has a yard for visitors to join in cultural activities of the Bahnar people in Kgiang village; has a pretty wooden bridge and many places for visitors to take pictures, sightsee...

Kong Long Khong Commune has many communities participating and operating well in the cultural tourism chain, attracting many tourists, selling many handicraft products to the people such as: brocade transformed into earrings, bracelets, hair decoration threads... thanks to the tireless contribution of female Cultural-Social officer Tran Thi Bich Ngoc.

At the Stor Resistance Village Relic Site (To Tung Commune, Kbang District), in addition to visiting the exhibition house about Hero Nup and Stor Resistance Village, visitors can also participate in many cultural experiences of the Bahnar people with the villagers. Here, accommodation and food services are also quite good. This is thanks to the contribution of the person in charge, Dinh Moi (Bahnar ethnic group), who graduated from college in Cultural Management.

Thus, people are an extremely important factor in making the cultural heritage of the community a resource for tourism development. These are people who know how to exploit cultural heritage creatively, know how to turn heritage into goods flexibly, bringing profits to the community. The common characteristics of these characters are that they are basically trained, sensitive to the tourism market, have the ability to discover heritage and turn discovered heritage into goods.

In the current era of information technology development, most of these young people know how to make the most of social networks to promote local tourism activities and products. On the other hand, these must also be people who know how to preserve the value of their cultural heritage, not being driven by profit to distort the core elements of the heritage.

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