Homestay – A New Direction for Vietnam Tourism

Homestay is an opportunity for tourists to stay at the locals’ home, taste local specialties, observe people work, and experience the rural life in remote areas. Thanks to the homestays, tourists will get lots of new and interesting experiences.

Homestay – A Trend of Asian Tourists

Elton See Tan – Dean of Business Administration at Grace Christian University and President of Makati Tourism Association, Philippines showed that ASEAN will be a potential tourism market in 2018 and tourism trend will be homestay “. According to statistics in 2017, the number of visitors to the ASEAN market is 12,922,151, increasing to 29.1% compared to 2016. The highest ranking positions are China, Korea, Japan, etc and there is a constant increase in this trend.

He also commented that the competitiveness between the hotels and homestays tourism is more and more increasing and disadvantages are more inclined to hotels & resorts.

Homestay – a form of community tourism develops rapidly and gradually becomes popular in the ASEAN countries as well as in the world. Its unique characteristics appealing to visitors are new things, customs, civilization, unique culture, especially in the areas with wildly spectacular nature.

According to ASEAN tourism experts, another advantage is staying at homestays is much lower than that in luxury hotels. A recent survey indicated that the cost of travelers spending on the most expensive homestay is about two-thirds of that in hotels. However, the comfort of communication, activities, and the friendliness of the indigenous people with tourists is really necessary so that tourists can “return” many times.

Is this a huge problem which leads to a headache for heads of hotels, motels serving a luxury resort or a great chance of integration to develop? The experts evaluated that it depends on vision and ability to take advantage of the enterprises themselves.

Homestay Models in Vietnam

“Experiencing at Vietnam homestays to taste specialties and communicate with the locals is more interesting than staying at hotels.” some tourists said. Many of them are fascinated with traditional games, local legendary stories, and the local culinary culture.

Depending on the region, the homestay exploits strengths based on inherent characteristics to build an appropriate model. For example, in the West, there is a combination of homestays and activities such as going fishing, river bathing, exploring the Floating Market, picking fruit, listening to Cai Luong, etc. In the mountainous areas, tourists can have an opportunity to discover magnificently natural landscapes, stay at stilt houses and participate in many interesting activities such as campfire, sap dancing, etc.

However, the homestay needs to pay attention to accommodation, hygiene, and attitude to meet the demand of tourists. Homestay owners also need to be equipped with travel knowledge so that guests feel pleasant and we can avoid a non-return trip.