0963 50 10 74
info@slowtravelhue.com
0963 50 10 74
info@slowtravelhue.comWe make Vietnam arts and crafts understandable and accessible to tourists. Integrated craft tours help tourists enrich their cultural experiences and local craftsmen sustain ancestral know-how. Our boutique presents handcrafted gifts and souvenirs with innovative designs, sustainable production for tourists to buy before, during and after the tour.
Discovering Vietnam craft villages provides concrete opportunities for genuine dialogue between visitors and hosts. Vietnamese began very early to integrate handicrafts into the rural economy and gradually formed specialised craft villages. It is like Italy, where the agglomeration of small firms in village served as the backbone of economic development. They comprise an ensemble of skills, knowledge and relations that grow out of the merger of village and provide a source of income to supplement farming. Craft villages have filled a space between past and future. After decades of disparagement, a rich architectural and cultural heritage is now being restored. Festivals and rituals in honours of guadians (tutelary) spirits and patron saints of crafts have been rehabilitated.
This highlights the vitality of the intangible heritages of villages, a great source of inspiration for creating a discerning type of tourism that takes account of other people’s cultures (UNESCO).
Our mission is “Integrating Slow Travel and Vietnam Crafts”. We create craft village profile, digitalise products, organise virtual and immersive tours by crafts and ethnic groups.
Since early 2017, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development launched the One Community One Product Program (OCOP). Statistically, Vietnam has 5100 craft villages with 4.823 competitive products, divided into six categories: Food, Beverages, Herbal, Textile, Souvenir-Home Décor and rural tourism services. These products and services have great potential to become national brands, contributing to sustainable rural development.
Bring culture, crafts products and tourists together is not enough to develop successful cultural tourism products. A cultural bridge needs to be formed between the local culture and the culture of the tourist. This means that crafts products need to be based on the needs and wants of the customer – the tourist.
We target national and foreign tourists, concerning about preserving local cultures and sustainability. They are willing to buy products that link with local culture and history, unique authenticity, and usefulness. We only concentrate on the crafts that satisfy that demands and if local people can earn a living by producing them.
Slow Travel Huế has strong commitment to the preservation and the revival of traditional crafts and arts. Before elaborating national and regional craft tours, we take “Crafted in Hue” as a pivoting craft tourism project axed on two pillars:
Huế region possesses an underexploited reservoir of arts and crafts, with 69 crafts villages among 88 well preserved ancient villages. Phuoc Tich is famed for its pottery, Tay Hồ for conical hats, Phuong Duc for bronze casting, Bao La for bamboo knitting, A Luoi for Dzeng texile, Thanh Tien and Sinh for colorful painting and flower making. They flourished during the feudal era to serve the culture of aesthetics but presently struggle to survive. There are creative crafts regenerated such as Truc Chi paper painting, enamel that worth spreading.
