Hoa Binh advocates developing tourism on Hoa Binh Lake Tourist Area in association with ensuring jobs, livelihoods, increasing incomes for people while preserving the traditional cultural identity of ethnic minorities. Accordingly, focusing on attracting tourism development and allocating capital to build infrastructure for localities in the development space of tourist areas in districts like Cao Phong, Da Bac, Tan Lac, Mai Chau and Hoa Binh city so as these places soon turn into key tourist areas of ​​the province and a national tourist area in the near future.

Visitors experience at Gau Tao Festival in Pa Co, Mai Chau

Cultural heritage including tangible cultural heritage and intangible cultural heritage is the spiritual and material product with historical, cultural, scientific and economic value, handed down from generation to generation. Cultural heritage of ethnic groups in Hoa Binh province is one of the resources for tourism development. Over the years, the culture, sports and tourism industries have relied on this resource to build up tourism products with bold identity, attracting a large number of domestic and foreign tourists.

In 2019, before being affected by the Covid-19 pandemic, Hoa Binh province welcomed nearly 3.2 million visitors, including more than 400,000 international tourists. In 2022, Hoa Binh tourism has recovered and grown strongly. In the first nine months of the year, the province has welcomed over 2 million visitors, and is forecasted to complete the target of welcoming 2.6 million visitors this year.

In the process of development, conservation and promotion of cultural heritage and tourist, there is a close mutual relationship promoting development. It can be said that if tourism develops, it will create conditions for visitors to access cultural values ​​in each locality. But if tourism only exploits without paying attention to cultural heritage preservation, cultural values ​​are not exploited to serve life in a practical way, traditional cultural identity will be dissolved. Therefore, paying attention to invest in the preservation, embellishment and promotion of cultural heritages in service of tourism activities, in particular, and the socio-economic development of the locality, in general, is an extremely urgent topic today. 

Culture of ethnic minorities is a valuable resource to build typical tourism products of Hoa Binh province

Over the past years, towards the common goal of the cultural cause stated in National Resolution 5, term VIII, Hoa Binh Province has paid great attention to the management and promotion of monuments value, and at the same time built a strategy to develop the tourism economy based on natural resources and the relic system of the province, along with cultural values ​​contained in relics and festivals.

Tien Pagoda Festival attracts a large number of visitors

Currently, Hoa Binh province has 102 relics ranked at all levels, of which 41 are ranked at the national level by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism and 61 at the provincial level. Regarding the intangible cultural heritage, Hoa Binh has four national-level tangible cultural heritages, namely the Muong and Mo Muong Art, Muong ethnic bamboo calendar, and Khai Ha Muong Bi festival. Every year, Hoa Binh has more than 60 traditional folk festivals registered to organize. This is an invaluable resource for Hoa Binh to promote tourism and service economic development.

Xen Ban Xen Muong Festival in Mai Chau