Success from homestay business model

With a legitimate desire to get rich, Mrs. Leo Thi Thim, a member of the Women’s Union of Lang Ben village, Huu Lien commune, Huu Lung district, constantly learned and boldly started the homestay tourism service business model.

Ms. Leo Thi Thim cleans the room at the homestay

 Mrs. Leo Thi Thim was born in 1986 into a farming family in Huu Lien commune. In 2005, she got married and lived in Lang Ben village, Huu Lien commune. At that time, she and her husband mainly worked in the fields, so they only had enough to eat and did not have a stable income.

Realizing the need to find a new direction to escape poverty, since 2017, when the Commune People’s Committee propagated and mobilized households to build and develop a community tourism model, Mrs. Thim’s family is one of the first 5 families in the commune to register to participate in building a “Homestay” model called Green Forest Homestay.

Mrs. Thim shared: “Seeing the potential of Huu Lien commune, there are groups of domestic and foreign tourists coming to visit and experience, but accommodations were very far from town. My family borrowed 50 million VND from the Bank for Social Policies and built a homestay in our own stilt house, while also renovating and designing more private rooms.”

Initially, when it was first implemented, Mrs. Thim’s family also encountered many difficulties because they did not have experience in running a homestay service, and customers did not know about it, so the number of customers was not many. To gain more experience, she visited models in other provinces such as Hoa Binh, Son La… and participated in training classes and guidance on tourism professional skills organized by the district and province. In addition, she also actively promotes the homestay on social networking sites to make more people aware of it, thanks to which the number of guests coming to stay at the homestay is also increasing.

In 2020, realizing that the demand for tourists to visit and stay is increasing, and the need to experience services is increasing, Mrs. Thim’s family has invested in building another homestay and providing many other services at the homestay such as: foot bathing service, bathing with Dao herbal medicine; Experience wrapping black banh chung and pumpkin cake; Kayaking…

Currently, the number of visitors visiting and staying at the family’s two homestays is always stable, with an average of about 180 to 200 visitors per month, and the income after deducting expenses reaches 45 million VND per month. On average each year, the family has an income of 400 million VND.

Not only does it bring high income to the family, thanks to effectively developing the homestay service business model, her family also creates jobs for 6-7 workers working directly at the homestay with an average income of 250 thousand VND to 300 thousand VND/day.

Mrs. Hoang Thi Thep, Chairwoman of Huu Lien Commune Women’s Union, said: Mrs. Leo Thi Thim is a typical example of a woman in the commune’s family economic development movement. Her family is one of the pioneers in investing in modern facilities to develop homestay services. From a situation with difficult economic conditions, with the spirit of eagerness to learn and dare to think and do, Mrs. Thim overcame all difficulties to successfully build a highly effective economic model. Not only is she good at economics, she also actively participates in local activities and is willing to share her family’s development experiences to help other members achieve economic development. With those efforts, for many years in a row, at the annual summary meetings, Mrs. Thim has been praised and rewarded by the association. In 2019, Mrs. Thim’s homestay service business idea won the typical startup idea award organized by the Provincial Women’s Union.

Mrs. Thim’s success in developing the homestay service business model has created a spreading effect for many members and people in the commune to participate. To date, in the commune there are 19 households providing homestay services, welcoming tourists from inside and outside the province to visit and experience, thereby contributing to promoting the socio-economic development of the commune.