DakLakProvince - An Amazing Land

Dak Lak is home to natural and poetic beauty with rivers and mountains, which have created such magnificent waterfalls as Krong Kmar, Bay Nhanh and DrayNur. The province has many large lakes with an area of between 200 and 600 hectares, like the Lak, Ea Don and Ea Nhaie, which are suitable for the development of tourism activities.

 

The province boasts many national parks and nature preserves, as well as primitive forests, which are home to precious plants and animals, especially elephants. The National Parks of Yok Don and Cu Yang Sin, and the nature preserves of Nam Ka and Ea So have attracted many visitors and scientists thanks to their biodiversity. Don village has become famous for the hunting and taming of elephants. Dak Lak has also many cultural and historical sites, such as the Buon Ma Thuot prison, Lao Giao communal house, Yang Rong tower, the Bao Dai palace and the Dak Tour cave, attracting many visitors.

 

Dak Lak is rich in culture and arts with sounds of forests and mountains, dances and songs of the ethnic minority groups of E De, M’Nong and Ja Rai. A place like Dak Lak with primitive relic sites and traditions, such as buffalo eating festival, elephant race, and specific architecture of long and communal houses, statues of grave houses and traditional instruments, gong and stone lithophone and T’rung instruments, is rarely found in the world. The province is also home to products of traditional crafts, including brocade, bamboo and rattan articles, and the epics of Dam San, Sinh Nha, Dam Bri, and Cay Neu Than ‘Magic New Year Pole,’ which greatly impress visitors.

Before 1995, the province had had only one hotel and seven guest houses with outdated facilities. By March, 2006, Dak Lak had had a total of 60 hotels with 2,387 beds, of which 17 hotels are rated from one to three stars.

 

In 2005 Dak Lak received 203,149 visitors, up by 22.66 per cent against 2004. Of the figure, 14,540 were foreign visitors, up by 50.95 per cent against 2004.

 

Dak Lak tourism has worked out its orientations of developing eco-tourism alongside with protecting and restoring local landscapes and the environment. The province’s cultural tourism development is based on a principle of protecting and developing cultural traditions and identity of ethnic groups, perceiving cultural quintessence of the human being on a selection basis.

 

As the Central Highlands has an important position in the Indochina peninsula, the development of tourism in Dak Lak should go along with social safety and national defence and security. Tourism development in the Central Highlands is community-based. Accordingly, the development of tourism should combine with the exploitation of resources and cultural and art potential of the community, as well as its responsibility for a sustainable development.

 

Dak Lak province has encouraged economic sectors to get involved in tourism development to diversify investment sources and tap fully potential in terms of capital, techniques, knowledge, labour and tourism resources, diversifying local tourism products to attract Vietnamese and foreign visitors.

 

With potential and advantages, Dak Lak is striving to develop tourism into a spearhead economic sector within its socio-economic development, promoting the development of other sectors and generating more jobs and incomes for local people, as well as increasing incomes for the society and promote the accumulation for the local budget.

 

Director of Dak Lak Department of Trade and Tourism