The Buôn Ma Thuột Coffee Festival on March 9 to 13 attracts 120,000 domestic and foreign tourists to Buôn Ma Thuột City. The event celebrates the 50th anniversary of the Liberation of Đắk Lắk Province (March 10, 1975) from the Sài Gòn regime. VNA Photo

In Việt Nam, when someone thinks of Đắk Lắk and its provincial capital Buôn Ma Thuột, the first thing that comes to mind is coffee.

Đắk Lắk’s red basalt soil and weather make it an ideal location for growing robusta coffee.

The coffee from the province, especially Buôn Ma Thuột, is much loved for its strong flavour and enticing aroma.

In fact, according to the Buôn Ma Thuột Coffee Association, historical records show that, during the French colonialism, coffee shops and roasters in France had already taken notice of Buôn Ma Thuột coffee’s exceptional quality, leading to more coffee plantations being established in the region.

All this has given Đắk Lắk the reputation of Việt Nam’s “Coffee Capital” while its speciality is highly regarded around the world, helping Vietnamese coffee make its name on the global map. 

With the region being synonymous with coffee, it is no surprise that the recent  Buôn Ma Thuột Coffee Festival was a resounding success, drawing 120,000 visitors.

The festival, the 9th of its kind, themed “Buôn Ma Thuột - World Coffee Destination”, was held from March 9 to 13, and it saw enormous crowds of locals and tourists immerse themselves in its lively atmosphere and have fun with the wide variety of coffee-related festivities.

Many visited to learn more about a beloved drink, take photos in scenic coffee farms and enjoy free coffee at the festival and the hundreds of cafes around the city, who were all equally happy to be a part of the event and leave a lingering mark on potential new customers. 

Grand and exciting parades featuring H'Hen Niê, Miss Universe Việt Nam 2017, and the festival's media ambassador, along with other famous personalities, created a first great impression among visitors for the entire five-day festival.

Tourists enjoy tasty coffee for free during the festival.  VNA Photo

​​Indeed, coffee is not merely a crop with high export value for the province; it is also a tourism magnet.

Visitors to the festival also got to experience the city’s rich multi-ethnic culture and fun destinations.

A large part of the annual event is the Buôn Đôn Elephant Festival, where visitors get to see traditional rituals and ceremonies related to the elephants, an important animal in the culture of the Central Highlands people.

Many had fun feeding and taking photos with the gentle giants and trying their hand at farming and other activities that taught them about local lifestyles.

There were also exciting traditional boat races.

Nguyễn Thảo Nguyên, a tourist from HCM City, told Việt Nam News that she attended the 2019 Buôn Ma Thuột Coffee Festival and was enormously impressed by locals’ friendliness and the fun places she visited, which is why she is back a second time.

“This time I plan to go to the World Coffee Museum and the Ko Tam Eco-tourism Site. Our family is already here for the festival, so might as well visit some other places.”

This is a sentiment shared by many other tourists.

H'Hen Niê, the winner of Miss Universe Việt Nam 2017, takes part in a parade opening the festival. VNS Photo Văn Châu

​The city has plenty of eco-tourism sites where visitors can enjoy beautiful scenery, listen to folk music performances and taste delicious traditional dishes such as roasted jungle fowl and cơm lam (sticky rice grilled in bamboo stems).

The event celebrates the 50th anniversary of the Victory of Buôn Ma Thuột and the Liberation of Đắk Lắk Province (March 10, 1975) from the Sài Gòn regime.

Coffee, festival drive tourism

When it comes to promoting the city’s tourism, the just ended coffee festival certainly did its job well - understandably so considering this is the ninth time the city has organised the festival.

During the event most local one- to five-star hotels were fully booked.

Prior to the festival the provincial Department of Culture, Sport and Tourism had instructed local accommodation facilities to prepare for a surge in visitors.

Hotels, tourism sites, restaurants, and other service providers were strictly warned not to engage in any dubious business practices to make sure visitors have a positive experience and come again in future.

In fact, many tourists were provided with a travel guide detailing information about the festival and list of restaurants and accommodations, along with a hotline for complaints.

Buôn Ma Thuột launched tour packages for visitors centred on coffee, elephants, traditional pottery, and local culture, all of them its tourism strengths.

The festival was a great opportunity to promote the province's rich multi-ethnic culture. - VNA Photo

For Đắk Lắk and Buôn Ma Thuột, it took a great deal of effort by all parties to build the local tourism brand to today’s level of recognition, and it involved ensuring the quality of its coffee products and offering interesting destinations such as the now-popular World Coffee Museum, which only opened around five years ago.

Since its start in 2005 the Buôn Ma Thuột Coffee Festival has been doing a fantastic job in attracting tourists in addition to promoting its staple speciality crop to domestic and international markets.

The biennial event has become a part of the city’s identity.

Huỳnh Thị Chiến Hoà, deputy secretary of the province Communist Party Committee, said at the festival opening ceremony: “The Buôn Ma Thuột Coffee Festival is an outstanding economic and cultural event of Đắk Lắk Province."

More and more people are travelling to the city thanks to the festival and its coffee, and the organisers are constantly striving to make each one better than the last: For instance, this year’s event featured an impressive light drone show for the first time.

An elephant parade as part of the festival. The Buôn Ma Thuột Coffee Festival has been rather effective in bringing tourists back for more.  VNS Photo Văn Châu

​Trần Đức Nhật, deputy chairman of Buôn Ma Thuột People's Committee [municipal administration], said the city was striving to become a “coffee city of the world”. 

In addition to strengthening coffee production and deep processing and trade promotion, the city was also coming up with new tourism products related to coffee and coffee farms, and renovating public spaces to incorporate the theme of coffee, Nhật said.

It was also preserving tangible and intangible cultural heritages that could promote tourism and serve its coffee festival, he added.

Linking tourism with a province’s unique speciality product, to the point where it becomes synonymous with a certain region, has always been a recipe for tourism success, and doubly so if a province can organise some sort of festival or cultural event around them that becomes popular with visitors.

Ninh Thuận has grapes, Cà Mau has shrimp and crabs, Đồng Tháp has lotus, and Buôn Ma Thuột, with its alluring coffee, will continue to draw tourists for years to come.  VNS