(HBO) – Over the past years, Hoa Binh province has prioritised resources for cultural heritage preservation and optimisation so as to create a strong impulse for tourism development.
Preserving
and optimising ethnic groups’ cultural heritage are hoped to help with tourism
development. Photo: A ritual performed at the Khai ha (going to the field)
Muong Bi Festival.
Statistics show that there were about 600
historical and cultural relic sites in Hoa Binh by the end of 2021, including
41 national and 61 provincial, with nearly 100 sites in the list of those
needing protection.
Meanwhile, the province is home to 786 tangible
cultural heritages and two national intangible ones, namely Mo Muong and the
gong art of the Muong ethnic group. At present, a national-level dossier is
being compiled to seek the UNESCO recognition of Mo Muong as part of the
intangible cultural heritage in need of urgent safeguarding.
All the relics and heritages are an important
resource helping with local tourism development over the past years.
On October 19, 2021, the provincial Party
Committee’s Standing Board issued Resolution No. 04-NQ/TU on the preservation
and optimisation of local ethnic groups’ cultural heritage values for the 2021
- 2025 period, with a vision to 2030. This resolution continued attaching importance
to preserving and bringing into play historical and cultural values so as to
develop tourism. It also devised many measures for capitalising on cultural and
historical values for tourism development.
However, it is a fact that there remain
shortcomings in this work, leading to a lack of high-quality tourism products
and services.
Luu Huy Linh, Deputy Director of the provincial
Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism, said to effectively tap into
cultural heritage values, the sector needs to prioritise collection and
research activities so as to identify the values of ethnic groups’ cultural
heritage; step up dissemination to raise authorities, people, and businesses’
awareness of the role, importance, and benefits of heritage; attract private
resources to building tourism infrastructure; and develop the tourism brand of
Hoa Binh in a professional manner, thereby helping turn tourism into a key economic
sector./.
From March 10th – 11th, the People's Committee of Cao Phong town (Cao Phong) coordinated with the Relics Management Board to organize the traditional festival of Thuong Bong Lai Temple in 2024.
As spring comes, people in Phu Nghia commune in particular and Lac Thuy district in general flock to Tien Pagoda festival to enjoy festive activities during the annual event.
Khai Ha festival is a long-standing traditional folk festival with the largest scale of Muong people in Hoa Binh province. In 2022, Khai Ha fesstival the Muong minority in Hoa Binh province was recognized as a national intangible cultural heritage by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism. In 2023 and 2024, the festival was held on the provincial scale, getting together 4 major Muong regions (Bi, Vang, Thang, Dong) to participate, and it has been an opportunity for the quintessence of Muong ethnic culture to converge and shine.
With a great passion for national art, outstanding artisan Nguyen Manh Tuan in Voi area, Ba Hang Doi town in Lac Thuy district, has developed and promoted a Muong ethnic cultural space with over 2,000 artifacts which are familiar in the daily life in the Muong ethnic people.
Along with the process of integration and development, traditional cultural identities of the Muong ethnic community in general, and Muong ethnic people in Tan Lac district in particular, are at risk of falling into oblivion. Therefore, many clubs have been established in the locality to preserve and promote the beauty of the ethnic group’s cultural identities.
Held every three years, the swing festival in Muong Voi, Vu Ban town in Lac Son district is "one-of-a-kind". From the 5th to the 7th day of the first lunar month in the Year of the Dragon, thousands of residents and tourists flocked to the locality to experience the unique cultural festival.