Ăn Chơi Vũng Tàu

Overview

Ăn Chơi Vũng Tàu is a community of people passionate about travel, food and cultural experiences, united by a love for Ba Ria - Vung Tau (former province). Founded in November 2017 and kept alive steadily for nearly 8 years, by June 2026 it had passed 738,000 members and was still adding around 1,300 members a week - a sign its pull remains intact, not a saturated or declining group.

The group's value lies not only in scale but in how alive it is. Each day the community produces around 3,600 new posts, nearly 97,000 a month, on top of tens of thousands of comments and interactions. This is content contributed by residents, travelers and local businesses themselves - reviews of eateries, destinations and places to stay - so it stays real and continuously updated to the rhythm of the region.

The group is run methodically under strict rules: posts must include an address, prices and self-taken photos; disguised advertising, smearing and rage-baiting are banned. This discipline keeps the information objective and trustworthy, and is why the community earns the support of socio-political organizations as well as a wide base of businesses and residents in the former Ba Ria - Vung Tau province.

Its reach extends beyond one locality, drawing members from neighboring areas like Dong Nai, Binh Duong and the wider Southeast region. At handover it was the largest travel and food community in the former Ba Ria - Vung Tau province - a media asset built and proven over time, ready to be developed further.

Context & challenge

When I took it on, this was a community launched on the “Sài Gòn Ùm” model, named “Vũng Tàu Ùm,” focused on food reviews, with fewer than 50,000 members. The idea pointed the right way, but the foundation was weak: no clear operating system, no proper moderation process, and no trained team to nurture content and keep daily engagement going. As a result the community was nearly frozen for a long stretch - membership stalled, posts were sparse, engagement fell very low and it slowly lost its spark.

The challenge deepened when Covid-19 arrived. The food industry - the backbone of the group's content - fell into an unprecedented slump: eateries closed en masse, tourism was paralyzed, people stayed in, and businesses had no appetite to promote or share. A community built around “eating and playing” all but lost its reason to exist in that period.

In other words, the starting point wasn't zero - it was a declining community in the least favorable market conditions, requiring an almost-from-scratch rebuild of both the operating mindset and the way content was made.

What I did

• Renamed it to Ăn Chơi Vũng Tàu and broadened the content scope to grow it into a place of value for the whole travel sector.
• Redesigned the visual identity, the code of conduct and a proper moderation system.
• Recruited strong writers and built a core content-production team.
• Invited travel, hospitality and food businesses to sponsor, drawing in new members.

Results

• Within a year, membership approached 200,000 and it became the largest local travel community in the region.
• Post quality and engagement both rose sharply.
• Businesses and residents benefited, and local tourism picked up.
• The admin team was commended by the Provincial People's Committee and the Department of Culture, Sports & Tourism, and invited to partner on major events.
• The community reached sustainable revenue from advertising and affiliate marketing.