Awakening Kon Ka Kinh, bringing tourists to the 'golden mountain'

At a working session with Kon Ka Kinh National Park on August 9, Chairman of Gia Lai Provincial People's Committee Pham Anh Tuan outlined strategic directions to attract development of this rich biosphere reserve.

Kon Ka Kinh National Park is a golden mountain of tourism.

According to Mr. Pham Anh Tuan, tourism is one of the five pillars of development of the new Gia Lai province. In particular, Kon Ka Kinh National Park is an important asset, with special value in tourism and conservation. This is the richest forest area in Vietnam and ASEAN with excellent weather conditions, and a biodiversity brand that has been recognized by the world .

From this advantage, Mr. Tuan requested that the authorities and the park management board take full advantage to develop tourism, bringing domestic and foreign tourists to admire Kon Ka Kinh.

The province will allocate resources to invest in infrastructure and roads to the national park. International press delegations will be invited to visit to spread the image of Kon Ka Kinh to the outside world.

Mr. Tuan likened the national park management board to sitting on a pile of gold, and needed to focus on exploiting it to generate revenue and contribute to socio-economic development.

At the same time, create sustainable livelihoods for local people, attract people to contribute to forest protection.

Highly biodiverse forest area, great climate

Sharing about the biodiversity of Kon Ka Kinh National Park, Mr. Ngo Van Thang, director of the park, said that the park has an area of nearly 42,000 hectares, including 39,500 hectares of forest, mostly natural forest.

The park has 1,754 species of plants and 876 species of animals. Of these, there are 16 endemic species such as: Central yellow-cheeked gibbon, grey-shanked douc langur, tiger, Truong Son muntjac, large muntjac, black-headed laughingthrush, long-billed laughingthrush, Kon Ka Kinh laughingthrush, grey-headed laughingthrush, yellow-billed tree-climber, striped pheasant, red-bottomed monk, net-trading lizard, red-tailed lizard, thorny frog.

Because it is only a pilot tourism exploitation, the number of visitors to the park in the first 7 months of 2025 is quite modest, only 342 visitors. This unit has sent staff to train in tourism and built a project to develop eco-tourism, resorts, and entertainment in the national park.

It is known that Kon Ka Kinh is one of 27 national parks in Southeast Asia recognized by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) as an ASEAN heritage park.

Kon Ka Kinh is assessed to have great potential for tourism development with a climate zone of 700 - 1,500m high, which can design different types of tourism. The area has advantages for developing eco-tourism, resorts, adventure sports, health care, agricultural tourism and specialized research.