With a legitimate desire to get rich, Mr. Phang A Pao, born in 1984, a member of the farmer's union in Cha Day village, Pa Co commune, Mai Chau district, has been constantly learning, and he boldly started a business and succeeded with the homestay business model.
A Pao’s homestay facilities in Pa Co commune (Mai Chau) have been invested to meet the relaxation needs of tourists.
Pa Co is home of Mong ethnic people, having a cool climate, favorable for developing homestay tourism. Since 2018, Mr. Phang A Pao has invested in and designed the houses with the traditional style of Mong ethnic people for homestay business. In addition to accommodation and dining services, the family's homestay exploits a number of accompanying services such as performing arts, visiting villages, experiencing the cultural colors, indigenous people's lives, and traditional folk games. To gain more experience, he went on a tour, studied the effective models in the provinces, and participated in the training courses on tourism skills and operations organized by the district and province. In addition, he has actively been promoting the homestay on the social networking sites, thanks to which the number of guests staying at the homestay has been increasing.
So far, his family's homestay has attracted thousands of turns of visitors. On average, each year A Pao Homestay A gives an income of nearly 1 billion VND, creating stable jobs for 4-5 local employees. Mr. Giang A Pao says: The family's homestay model is full of experiential activities such as beeswax painting, traditional Giang paper making, visiting Mong villages, tourism attractions, rattan hunting spots, and Pa Co market, the cultural and artistic exchanges imbued with the traditional national identity. In addition, visitors can also enjoy the traditional ethnic cuisine such as alcohol made from corn, alcohol made from plum, indegious pork, H'mong black chicken...
Along with that, he has enthusiastically been participating in the social and humanitarian activities. Through the movements launched by the State, his family has mobilized and supported annually by giving 150 - 200 Tet gifts to the poor households, each gift worth from 200,000 - 250,000 VND; sponsoring the soccer tournaments organized by the Youth Communist Union, Women's Union, and Communal Farmers' Association; regularly sponsoring the village’s and commune’s athletes participating in the tournaments organized by the superiors; Supporting the building of Pa Co night market’s cooperative group.
As a member of the Farmers' Union and the Head of the Professional Farmers' Union "Farmers doing homestays and experiencing Pa Co agriculture”, he always obeys and propagates to his family, the members and the people to strictly comply with the Party’s policies and guidelines, the State’s policies and laws, the local conventions and conventions; building the professional associations to effectively promote the available potential, creating close links between the members with the same passion for the community tourism business, contributing to building the new rural areas in the locality.
Mr. Phang A Song, the Chairman of Pa Co Farmers' Union, says: Mr. Phang A Pao is a typical farmer member in the commune's family economic development movement. His family is one of the pioneers in investing in modern facilities to develop homestay services. With the eager spirit of learning, daring to think, and daring to do, Mr. Pao has overcome all difficulties to successfully build a highly effective economic model. Not only is he good at doing economics, he has also been actively participating in the local activities, being ready to share experiences to help other members achieve the economic development. For many consecutive years, his family has been recognized as a typical cultural family and received a certificate of merit from the Chairman of the Provincial People's Committee rewarding the farmers with good production and business in the period of 2021 - 2023.
Mr. Phang A Pao's success in developing the model of homestay service business has created a ripple effect to members and people in the area. To date, the commune has 4 households providing homestay services to welcome tourists to visit and experience, contributing to promoting the local socio-economic development.
In the first 9 months of 2024, Hoa Binh province continues to implement the expanded tourism development cooperation program plan of 8 Northwest provinces with Ho Chi Minh City; deploying digital transformation content in tourism and developing a smart tourism province. Hoa Binh province received about 3.6 million views, an increase of 7.9% over the same period. In which, international visitors are about 380 visitors, domestic visitors are estimated at 3 million 220 visitors.
Spanning thousands of hectares and winding gracefully along mountain slopes, hillsides, and riverbanks, the terraced rice fields of Lac Son District present a stunning and captivating beauty. This region, renowned for its remarkable terraced landscapes, is also the centre of Hoa Binh Culture known for numerous archaeological sites.
The life of Mong people in Hang Kia and Pa Co communes of Mai Chau district has improved much thanks to tourism development.
The man-made Hoa Binh Lake, with a water surface area of approximately 9,000 hectares and a capacity of 9.45 billion cubic meters, stretches over 200 kilometers from Hoa Binh to Son La provinces. With the goal of developing into a national tourism area, the Hoa Binh Lake tourism area is expected to not only become the largest tourism centre in the province but also one of the 12 key tourist destinations in the northern midland and mountainous region of Vietnam.
Da Bia hamlet, now Duc Phong, in Tien Phong commune, Da Bac district, was once almost isolated from the outside as the only way to the hamlet was to get a boat ride across the Hoa Binh reservoir. However, as its tourism potential has been unleashed, the hamlet has established itself as one of the most attractive destinations on the tourism map. It has even received the ASEAN Community-Based Tourism Awards in 2019.
In the first 9 months of 2024, Mai Chau district, Hoa Binh province welcomed over 684 thousand visitors to visit and relax. In which, over 516 thousand domestic visitors and more than 168 thousand international visitors. Total revenue from tourism is estimated at over 821 billion VND.