Lao Cai Ward: To turn historical and cultural relics into attractive tourist destinations

When mentioning Lao Cai city (old), it is impossible not to mention the famous relics and cultural heritages in the border of the Fatherland. In Lao Cai ward, there is currently a rich system of relics and heritages with 4 relics ranked as national historical and cultural relics (Thuong temple, Mau temple, Cam temple, President Ho Chi Minh memorial house) and 2 relics ranked as provincial relics (Quan temple, Van Hoa temple)...

In addition, in the Thuong Temple relic complex, there is also a banyan tree over 300 years old that is recognized as a Vietnam Heritage Tree. The Thuong Temple Festival is recognized as a national intangible cultural heritage.

Over the years, the system of historical and cultural relics of Lao Cai ward not only carries many important historical and cultural values of the border land, but also contains values for tourism development and has become attractive tourist destinations.

Recently, Lao Cai Ward People's Committee organized a delegation to survey historical and cultural relics, invited experts to survey, evaluate, and propose solutions for tourism development associated with local historical and cultural relics.

Through the survey, Dr. Tran Huu Son - Director of the Vietnam Institute of Applied Folk Culture Research affirmed: Lao Cai Ward is the border bridgehead, also the center of spiritual culture, the center connecting with other localities such as: Sa Pa, Bat Xat, Bao Thang... This place has a rich system of relics and heritages with many important values.

The heritages here are not only heritages, not only places for traditional education but also resources for local tourism development. To turn historical and cultural relics into tourist destinations, institutional reform and the development of effective spiritual tourism projects are needed. Along with that, digitalization needs to be applied to better exploit the potential and value of the heritages.

In fact, in recent times, in Lao Cai city (old), the local government has had solutions to preserve and promote the value of relics and cultural heritage associated with tourism. From there, turning historical and cultural relics into attractive tourist destinations.

During the 2020 - 2025 term, Lao Cai ward welcomed over 1.5 million visitors; revenue from tourism and services is estimated at over 2,000 billion VND.

However, looking at the whole picture, Lao Cai city (old) and Lao Cai ward are still having difficulties in promoting the value of relics and have not created their own tourism brand. The development of cultural tourism and heritage tourism is still unclear, there are no outstanding tourism products and have not brought high economic efficiency. In the new period, there needs to be more solutions to develop tourism from local relics and heritages.

Vice Chairwoman of Lao Cai Ward People's Committee Tran Thi Thuy Dung said: Lao Cai Ward currently inherits a system of valuable relics and heritages of the old Lao Cai city. With the aim of assessing the potential, discussing solutions for regional connectivity, attracting investment in local tourism development, Lao Cai Ward People's Committee recently organized the Conference "Lao Cai Gateway Tourism: Regional Connection, Border Colors" with the participation of many delegates from relevant agencies and units.

The conference proposed many important solutions to overcome difficulties, exploit potentials, advantages and orient tourism development of the ward, in which, the issue of preserving and promoting the value of relics and heritages associated with tourism development, the issue of planning, restoring and embellishing relics and connecting spiritual tourist spots of Lao Cai ward with other communes and wards were of interest.

Talking to us about the tourism development orientation of Lao Cai ward in the coming time, Mr. Pham Tat Thanh - Director of the Provincial Tourism Information and Promotion Center said: Lao Cai ward is located in the central connecting position of the North of the province, with Lao Cai - Ha Khau international border gate connecting with Yunnan province and the vast Southwest region of China, with great potential to develop tourism types such as cultural and religious tourism, cross-border tourism... The Department of Culture - Sports and Tourism of the province continues to advise on the development of Lao Cai ward to become the tourism connection center of the province.

By exploiting the tourism potential of relics and cultural heritages, in the coming time, Lao Cai ward strives to become a "Heritage, experience and connection destination", an unmissable stop in the journey to explore the Northwest region, worthy of the position of an international gateway.

Source: https://baolaocai.vn/phuong-lao-cai-de-cac-di-tich-lich-su-van-hoa-thanh-diem-du-lich-hap-dan-post883628.html