The Central Highlands province of Lam Dong is home to 35 agrotourism sites, a figure expected to rapidly increase in the years to come.
A site selling local farm produce in Lam Dong (Photo: Vietnam Agriculture)
Visitors can experience various activities in the local farms.For example, the Long Dinh Joint Stock Company in Lam Ha district welcomes 80-100 tourists per day to its organic tea farm, with 700 coming on some holidays.Meanwhile, DL Nature farm tourism complex in Da Lat city provides visitors with services to explore local fruit and vegetable gardens, stores selling Da Lat specialties and cafes. Each day, it serves 150-200 visitors.Kien Huy farm tourism company in Lac Duong district offers super fruits and vegetables grown using high technology.Cau Dat company in Da Lat city allows sightseers to visit its 220 hectares of tea, a more than 100-year tea processing plant and a vegetable garden applying smart technology. Annually, the company serves more than 400,000 tourists.Vinh Tien company in Da Lat city spent 23 billion VND (979,374 USD) building an artichoke tea processing and wine plant. It welcomes 400-500 visitors each day.Da Lat vegetable hydroponic company is leading the country in the number of visitors and revenue in this type of tourism.Its agritourism site covers 11 hectares with a hydroponic vegetable production area, a flower growing area, a super fruit growing area, a restaurant, and a showroom offering Da Lat specialties.Total investment for this site was about 160 billion VND (6.8 million USD). It welcomes 3,000 tourists and earns about 90 million VND in revenue each day.Agritourism has been developed in multiple countries from the 1980s. Nations such as Sweden, Denmark, the Republic of Korea, Japan, Thailand, the UK, France, Germany, Austria and Italy have been encouraging the tourism model.Many localities in Vietnam have advantages to develop agrotourism such as Hoi An city (Quang Nam province) and Tinh Bien district (An Giang province).
Flowers at an agrotourism site in Lam Dong province (Photo: Vietnam Agriculture)
The Mekong Delta city of Can Tho and Vinh Long, Tien Giang and Ben Tre provinces along with Tan Phu (Dong Nai), Sa Pa (Lao Cai), Ba Vi (Hanoi), Hoc Mon and Binh Chanh (Ho Chi Minh City) have great potential to develop farm tourism, especially garden tourism.For Lam Dong province, the tourism industry is a driving force to boost the local economy. Lam Dong is the most popular destination in the Central Highlands, attracting 78.34 percent of total visitors to the region, according to the Steering Committee for the Central Highland Region. It is home to the city of Da Lat, which has the typical natural and cultural features of the Central Highlands. The city, nestled at 1,500 metres above sea level, is quiet and pretty all year with mild climate and temperatures varying between 15 and 24 degree Celsius.Lam Dong is also among the hi-tech agricultural production leaders nationwide, and it has been piloting agro-tourism villages, aiming to draw more domestic and international tourists to the province.The province has about 1,300 accommodation establishments, 100 tourist attractions and 58 travel agencies, as well as thousands of collectives and individuals offering tourism services. Besides agritourism, the province holds potential to develop other forms of tourisms such as resort tourism, sightseeing tourism, ecological tourism, cultural and historical tourism and spiritual tourism.-VNA
