Just coming to hamlet 2-Son My commune (Ham Tan district) on those days, we saw nearly ten groups of young people taking homestay tourism by motorbikes, and they stayed at their friends’ or acquaintances’ houses as the accommodation during the trip. They can visit Cam Binh community tourist area to swim, buy fresh seafood straight from the fishermen to cook and serve themselves, or drive upwards to pristine beaches in hamlet 3 to contemplate and take photographs at coastal white sandhills. In addition to very attractive landscapes, guests also get interesting experiences of participating in such activities as helping their host families take care of livestock and pick farming products.
Those who spent their holiday in travelling to Tan Thang and Thang Hai communes had a lot of unforgetable activities, as follows: visiting white smooth sand bank along the beach, joining seafood picking right at the fishing boats in early morning. Driving along the national highway No.55, visitors can drop in Cat Van ecotourism area, an ideal destination with pastoral sceneries not far from Binh Chau hot springs resort (Ba Ria-Vung Tau province). We also occasionally met a number of foreign tourists accompanying with their Vietnamese friends on homestay tours.
The community-based homestay tourism form has become popular in the coastal areas of Binh Thuan since a great number of native people studying and working in nearby urban areas such as: Ho Chi Minh city, Bien Hoa (Dong Nai), Thu Dau Mot (Binh Duong) and Vung Tau (Ba Ria-Vung Tau), and they often invite their friends to visit their homeland by taking cheap homestay tours on weekends and holidays in order to explore new-fangled things. Currently, hotels and guest houses are very scattered in the region, mostly concentrate around Cam Binh community tourist area and along the national highway No.55 in Tan Thang and Thang Hai, causing lack of accomodation for visitors. Therefore, backpacking tourists coming to Ham Tan will naturally find homestay service. It is important that local government should encourage households to get involved in homestay development by building proper accommodation and services to cater homestay tourists for extra income. This tourism form has been successfully deployed on Phu Quy island during peak holidays.
| Homestay services attract travellers “There are more and more holiday-makers, especially foreigners paying attention to homestay tourism form, which has been already effectively exploited in many localities nationwide, such as: Son La, Lao Cai (in villages of the ethnic minorities of Thai, Muong), Ben Tre, An Giang and buon Ma Thuot”, said Mr. Nguyen Van My-Director of Lua Viet Picnic Company. |
Phuong Lan (Source: Binh Thuan Newspaper)
