Điện Biên is a land rich in cultural identity with much tourism potential. The formation of nighttime economic spaces and products will contribute to creating new appeal for tourism while promoting economic growth. Previously, Điện Biên lacked nighttime experience activities. Most tourists, after visiting historical relics and scenic spots during the day, often chose to leave early or stay in their hotels without many entertainment or shopping activities. Clearly recognizing this limitation, the province has gradually shifted its tourism development direction towards depth, identifying the nighttime economy as one of the important solutions.

One of the prominent highlights was the opening of the Mường Thanh Pedestrian Street in early March. This space quickly became an attractive cultural and tourism destination, converging local specialty products, food stalls, traditional handicrafts, and unique ethnic cultural performances. Visiting the Mường Thanh Pedestrian Street, tourists can sightsee, experience, and feel more clearly the cultural beauty and people of Điện Biên through every dish, dance, traditional Khen sound, and ethnic costume. The pedestrian street also opens up business opportunities for small traders, households, and many service workers. Many business households reported that revenue increased by 10% to 30% compared to before, thanks to the concentration of customers in the evening.

Visiting Điện Biên for the first time right during a festival, Nguyễn Thu Hà, a tourist from Tây Ninh province, shared that she was quite surprised by the vibrant atmosphere at the Mường Thanh Pedestrian Street. She noted that she used to think Điện Biên was only suitable for daytime visits to historical relics, but the evenings here are very interesting. Enjoying highland cuisine while watching ethnic cultural performances felt very intimate and unique. What she liked the most was that the local cultural identity was preserved within the tourism activities.

To ensure the Mường Thanh Pedestrian Street operates effectively and becomes a cultural and tourism highlight of the locality, the provincial People’s Committee directed functional agencies to review and issue appropriate operating regulations. They must organize a reasonable pedestrian street space that is deeply imbued with the cultural identity of the province’s ethnic groups. Concurrently, they must arrange areas to introduce typical cuisine, agricultural products, and OCOP products, while ensuring good conditions for environmental sanitation, fire prevention, and public security and order, thereby building a civilized urban lifestyle.

The province also determined that nighttime economic development must be closely linked to exploiting historical values. Instead of only opening for daytime visits, many relics have been invested with artistic lighting systems and organized to serve tourists in the evening. Since early 2025, the Hill A1 relic has started opening for nighttime visits on weekends, holidays, and Tet. Under the soft light of the artistic lighting system, the trenches, bunkers, and monuments on Hill A1 become solemn, helping viewers feel the historical value and sacrifices of previous generations more clearly. Many tourists have chosen to stay in Điện Biên for an extra night just to experience the nighttime historical tour.

Trần Minh Đức, a tourist from Đà Nẵng city, said that previously, whenever traveling to mountainous areas, it was often quite “sad” at night due to the lack of experiential activities. However, this trip to Điện Biên changed his mind. He shared that in the evening, he and his friends walked around the streets, ate grilled food, watched the Xòe dance, and then visited Hill A1 at night. The atmosphere was very different, combining historical depth with youthfulness and modernity. He remarked that if investments continue to be made more methodically, the nighttime economy will certainly help Điện Biên retain tourists longer.

The nighttime economy also spreads benefits to various labor groups. Food vendors, souvenir sellers, and folk performing artists all have more opportunities to increase their income. Many local youths have boldly opened coffee shops, barbecue restaurants, check-in areas, and cultural experience services to serve tourists. Several homestays in the suburban areas of the Điện Biên basin have proactively innovated their products by organizing cultural exchange programs, ethnic art performances, campfires, and traditional culinary experiences to meet tourists’ needs.

To create a foundation for the nighttime economy to develop, Điện Biên also focuses on investing in urban infrastructure, transportation, and landscape embellishment. Many central streets have been renovated to be more spacious, clean, and beautiful, contributing to building a civilized and modern urban image that still retains its deep identity. Notably, Điện Biên province recently commenced the construction of the cultural and historical tourism cable car complex project in Mường Phăng commune, which, once completed, will contribute to attracting tourists. Along with infrastructure investment, Điện Biên focuses on building a safe and friendly tourism environment, ensuring security, order, environmental sanitation, and urban civilization.

Through multiple solutions, Điện Biên is increasingly attracting tourists, not only in quantity but also in quality, with the average length of stay increasing. The number of tourists has risen year by year. While in 2023 it reached 1 million tourists, it grew to 1.85 million in 2024 and 1.45 million in 2025. The average length of stay for tourists is 3 days. In the first four months of 2026, the entire province welcomed 705,000 tourists, of which international visitors reached 5,498, generating total tourism revenue of VND 1,277 billion.

Nighttime service, commercial, culinary, and entertainment activities have stimulated consumption, created more jobs, and increased income for the people. With the orientation of making tourism a spearhead economic sector, Điện Biên aims to welcome over 8 million tourists in the 2026-2030 period, with total tourism revenue reaching about VND 15,000 billion. Along with investing in infrastructure and diversifying tourism products, developing the nighttime economy is expected to become an important “lever” to extend the length of stay, increase tourists’ spending, and create jobs for about 19,500 workers, including roughly 9,000 direct workers.

However, for the nighttime economy to truly become a new growth engine, Điện Biên still has much work to do. The nighttime entertainment service system is currently not very diverse, and experiential products lack professionalism and large scale. Some areas still lack synchronous infrastructure, facing a shortage of parking lots, public restrooms, and tourist support services. Promotion efforts and connecting nighttime tours with travel agencies need to be further intensified.

The lights in the mountain streets today not only illuminate the urban space but also open expectations for a new development direction for local tourism and the economy. If methodically invested in, properly exploiting its potential while maintaining its unique identity, the nighttime economy will become an important driving force, contributing to the robust development of Điện Biên tourism in the coming years.