Fostering tourism expertise and operations associated with unique values

On November 23-25, Kon Tum City Center for Culture - Sports - Tourism and Communications organized a training class to foster tourism expertise associated with exploiting typical agricultural values and traditional cultural values in Kon Tum city in 2023.

During the 4-day class, students were taught topics on cultural skills, communication and behavior, and welcoming and serving tourists; skills and methods of food preparation; tourism accommodation service skills; tour operating skills; tour guide skills. At the same time, they had a chance to survey, exchange, learn experiences and practice related processes and skills at some typical rural tourism and community tourism locations in Kon Tum city and Kon Plong district, Dak Ha district.

Through the training class, students were updated with new knowledge, information and experience in tourism activities; thereby contributing to gradually standardizing the staff and tourism workforce in the area.

Abundant potential for experiential tourism

As a mountainous, highland, border province, located in the northern Central Highlands, Kon Tum is the intersection of many important traffic routes of Vietnam (Ho Chi Minh Road, National Highway 24, National Highway 40...). It is home to the unique "Vietnam - Laos - Cambodia National Border Landmark," which has become a symbol of solidarity, friendship and comprehensive cooperation between the three Indochina countries. Kon Tum is identified as the province with the country's important strategic position in terms of politics, socio-economics, national defense, security and foreign affairs.

Kon Tum has more than 40 ethnic groups living together and each ethnic group has its own unique cultural features, with a full range of forms such as: speech, writing; folk literature; social customs; traditional festival; traditional crafts and folk knowledge; folk performing arts (including music, dance, singing, theater and other forms of folk performance), particularly the "Central Highlands Gong Cultural Space" which has been recognized by UNESCO as a “Representative Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity”.

In the province, there are 27 revolutionary historical, cultural, and scenic relics that have been ranked as provincial-level, national-level, and special national-level relics. Historical and revolutionary relics have been ranked at the national level include: Kon Tum Prison historical site (Kon Tum city), Dak Glei prison historical site (Dak Glei district); Mang Den scenic spot and historical relics (Kon Plong district), Dak To - Tan Canh victory historical relic (Dak To district), Plei Kan Victory relic (Ngoc Hoi district) which are currently being restored and preserved.

The province has 148 products recognized as OCOP of 3 stars or more, of which 01 product is recognized by the Central Government as achieving 5 stars at the national level, 20 products receiving 4 stars and 127 products achieving 3 stars. These products belong to the group of products such as fresh vegetables, tubers, and fruits products; processed from rice and cereals; processed from meat, eggs, milk; tea products; alcoholic drink; natural mineral water, bottled drinking water; other non-alcoholic beverages; functional foods, medicines from medicinal herbs, traditional medicine; community tourism services and tourist attractions.

These are the materials for Kon Tum to promote the integration and implementation of plans and programs to support people and businesses in developing tourism in rural areas associated with typical products.

Gradually completing and forming community tourism destinations

Over the past time, Kon Tum has made efforts to build tourist and entertainment areas not only in urban areas, but also in rural areas to create a spillover effect in tourism activities. At the same time, the province focuses on developing and enhancing local specific OCOP products, contributing to enriching tourism programs, attracting tourists, increasing people's income, and aiming to develop tourism and sustainable development in rural areas, specifically:

In the province, a number of tourist attractions and tours attracting tourists to rural areas have been formed on the basis of exploiting the province's typical cultural values to serve tourism development, such as Kon K'Tu cultural and tourist village, Dak RoWa commune and Dak Lek village, Ngoc Bay commune, Kon Tum City; Kon Pring Cultural and Tourism Village, Dak Long commune, Kon Plong district; Dak Rang Cultural and Tourism Village, Dak Duc commune, Ngoc Hoi district.

Kon Tum is gradually perfecting and forming major community tourist destinations in Mang Ri commune, Tu Mo Rong district associated with an experiential tour to the ginseng garden of people and businesses and conquering Ngoc Linh peak; cultural experience tour, nature discovery tour at Chu Mom Ray National Park, Sa Thay district. Coming here, visitors can experience and participate in cultural activities of local people such as playing gongs, dancing, enjoying ethnic cuisine, and learning about daily living customs and habits, participating in people's daily production activities...

A number of typical local products invested by businesses to serve tourists have been formed such as: Sim Mang Den wine, Ngoc Linh ginseng,... Through the implementation of the One Commune One Product Program (OCOP) and the industrial promotion program supports businesses investing and exploiting business in rural areas, Kon Tum has gradually established reputation in the market, have eye-catching trademarks and product packaging, with characteristics and advantages. Local products are very suitable as gifts that tourists are especially interested in.

To stimulate the available potential of localities, typical products and OCOP products in Kon Tum are preserved and developed, contributing to innovation and development of the rural economy.

The province continues to direct and give priority in developing unique products and quality-assured OCOP products; through businesses, cooperatives, and manufacturing households to diversify product designs to suit customer tastes; building a chain of links in production and consumption of products, bringing economic benefits to entities and people; orienting the development of key products of each locality to have geographical indications; linking typical product production areas with tourism; forming specialized production areas suitable to the natural conditions of each region, improving production towards safe production and fine processing; applying and transferring advances and science and technology into production and processing; attracting investment in developing typical products, OCOP products...

Lam Vien