Thuy Bieu still remains a well-known place with many gardens growing ‘thanh trà’ (pomelo fruit), a brand of specialty fruit of Hue. With its green and beautiful space, nice people and a location not far from the city center, Thuy Bieu is attracting more and more visitors.
Tourists practice making fried fermented pork roll at Hue Ecologde Rerort
Potentials
Located in the outskirt of Hue City, Thuy Bieu Ward has 147 hectares owned by more than 1000 households specializing in growing pomelos. There are also here a lot of nha ruong (ancient pillared houses) with the ancient architectural style existing for hundreds of years with 7 of them now under the care of the garden houses protecting project owned by Hue City. In terms of homestay and community tourism services, six households in the ward have taken part in providing catering and so on.
Currently, in the ward there are two resorts already in operation including Hue Ecolodge Resort and Hue Riverside Boutique Resort & Spa in an area of over 5 hectares. Thuy Bieu is a favorable destination for ecotourism and ecolodge tourism for tourists.
Ms. Tran Thi Kim Lai, manager of Hue Ecolodge Resort, said that the Ecolodge Resort in Hue was put into operation in August 2016 with 20 rooms, and within 4 months it attracted over 500 guests. In 2017, this resort attracted nearly 2000 visitors. Most visitors to the resort are from France, Germany, USA, Italy and Canada, etc.
Visitors can travel by boat or by coach to the resort. At the resort, the guests can enjoy free of charge services such as pediluvium with the medicinal leaves grown in the garden, enjoy cycling to visit the craft villages in Thuy Bieu such as painting village, incense making village, votive paper making village to learn about Hue cultural traits. In 2017, the resort's revenue was over 3 billion VND.
Many solutions
In addition to the two resorts and garden houses now under operation, Thuy Bieu is also a place with many community tours designed and operated by different travel agencies. In peak seasons, Thuy Bieu welcome about 200 guests/day.
At present, the Ancient Garden Company Limited (owned by Trinh Cong Son’s family) is continuing the study for their investment in the Trinh Cong Son Cultural Space Project with a total area of 19 hectares at Luong Quan mudflat. However, the development of tourism in Thuy Bieu is going slow due to the ward’s limited infrastructure, which still makes it impossible for Thuy Bieu to attract big businessmen.
Mr. Vo Dang Thai, Vice Chairman of the People’s Committee of Thuy Bieu Ward asserts that for development of Thuy Bieu’s tourism, the local people and government has, in the past years, cooperated to expand Luong Quan and Than Van Nhiep streets, which helps facilitate the travel of the local people and the visits of the tourists as well.
There are about 50 narrow roads that need to be expanded, including the 5 roads leading to pomelos gardens that serves community tourism. The People’s Committee of Thuy Bieu Ward will call for investment, and together with local government and people, the ward will continue to widen the roads from 3m to 5m to help promote tourism development.
According to Mr. Thai, the present orientation of Thuy Bieu Ward is to develop community tourism, ecotourism and recreation tourism with the participation of the local people, especially the participation of a businessman who will cooperate with the locality to organize camping tours in pomelo gardens, folk games such as ‘bài chòi’, cycling tours, gardening experience tours…
It is expected that in 2018 the Provincial Department of Planning and Investment will invest more than 98 billion VND into building Bui Thi Xuan, Long Tho and Huyen Tran Cong Chua streets. The money is provided by the development program for grade 2 urban centers (green cities) - Thua Thien Hue Sub-project funded by ADB and counterparts’ fund.
Bui Thi Xuan street will be built with a length of more than 3km connecting Long Tho Bridge with Thuy Bieu Primary School. According to the design, the width of the street is 7.5m with pavements of 3m wide on each side. Long Tho Bridge will be rebuilt on the old one with a length of more than 30m and the width of 13.5m.
With its available potential and strength together with big projects that will soon be implemented, for sure Thuy Bieu tourism will develop quickly and sustainably.
| Thuy Bieu Thanh Tra Pomelos Festival is held every 2 years, which usually attracts about 10,000 visitors. The festival helps to introduce thanh tra pomelos, a special product of Hue as well as to advertize community tourism, ecotourism and recreation tourism in Thuy Bieu to more people and tourists. In 2017, the revenue from Thuy Bieu thanh tra pomelos grew to nearly 3 billion VND. |
Story and photo: Hai Hue