In 2004, the province began to build community-based tourism model in 8 cultural villages in Dien Bien District and Dien Bien Phu City including Noong Bua, Co My, Ten, U Va, Pe Luong, Phieng Loi, Him Lam 2 and Men. Each village also established a team of 15 - 20 people to guide; serve cuisine, arts and ensure security for tourists.

Policy of community-based tourism development in the cultural villages is a good condition to improve material and spiritual life for locals, at the same time preserve and promote cultural identity. Therefore, many households renovated and upgraded actively their houses, especially toilets, breeding facilities; restored traditional crafts and festivals; participated in culture and arts activities... Previously, villagers' economic life was difficult but now it has been significantly improved thanks to community-based tourism.

To Thai ethnic villages in Dien Bien, tourists will have opportunity to participate in daily activities with the villagers; enjoy rustic foods with mountainous flavor as grilled fish and meet, forest bamboo... and spices in the Northwest region only as cham cheo, mac khen... When night falls, by the flickering fire, tourists will be enjoyed unique art programs with specific songs and dances of Thai people.

Besides the achievements, community-based tourism activity in Dien Bien still faces many problems in need of solution such as all tourism villages are Thai ethnic people's, identical services (cuisine and art), there is no special tourism products; tourism management staff in the villages still lack of experience in implementing community-based tourism development...

To overcome those problems and create more plentiful, attractive tourism products, Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism of Dien Bien Province has set up the project "Building cultural villages to 2015", of which 10 cultural villages located in importance tourist routes and associated with Thai, Hmong, Lao, Kho Mu ethnic groups... in districts of Tuan Giao, Dien Bien, Muong Cha and Dien Bien Phu City were chosen to set up. After being invested and built, the villages will strive to welcome and serve annually 10-15% total number of tourist to Dien Bien Province. Particularly, in 2015, the villages will welcome 55,000 tourist arrivals, of which international tourists are 12,000 arrivals; each village will welcome averagely over 4,000 tourist arrivals per year (20% as international tourists); the average length of stay is 1 - 1.2 days per tourist arrival. To achieve this goal, Dien Bien will focus on investing, constructing works to serve tourists; restoring traditional crafts to produce souvenirs; training service skills for the villagers...

Along with other provinces in the Northern mountainous region, Dien Bien is exploiting gradually its potentials and advantages to develop community-based tourism type, create opportunities for people to benefit from resources, culture and landscapes. This is the right direction which not only improves the villagers' life but also contributes to conserving, preserving and promoting unique traditional values of ethnic minority people in Dien Bien.

Thu Giang