Many areas in Yen Bai boast a mild climate year-round, stunning natural landscapes, and the unique cultural heritage of ethnic minorities. These attributes have shaped distinctive tourism products. With the motto of "using culture to develop tourism, and tourism to preserve culture," Yen Bai has focused on preserving and promoting cultural heritage and landmarks while integrating them with tourism to generate new livelihoods for local communities.

Yen Bai currently has 574 intangible cultural heritage sites, including one UNESCO-recognised heritage and six national heritages. As a result, visitors to Yen Bai can immerse themselves in the vibrant culture of ethnic minorities through the Gau Tao Festival, Khen Mong (the Mong group’s panpipe) Festival, Com Moi (New Rice) Festival, Tang Cau Festival, Cap Sac Festival, Terraced Rice Field Festival, and the “Flying on Golden Season” Paragliding Festival.

Visitors can also enjoy traditional foods unique to the highlands, such as five-colour steamed sticky rice, black sticky rice cakes, stream moss, spicy bamboo shoots, stream duck, ant eggs, and Shan Tuyet tea.

Yen Bai has been expanding tourism products into year round activities, including mountain climbing, scenic checkpoints, wellness tourism, and cultural and religious experiences. In Mu Cang Chai district, more than 20 new tourism products have been launched in the past two years, including eco-tourism to view the terraced rice fields, which are a national heritage site. In addition, the "Step on the Clouds" Mountain Climbing Competition, held at Ta Xua Peak in Tram Tau district for the past two years, attracts thousands of visitors. This new adventure tourism product allows participants to traverse a 12 km steep mountain trail to experience the exhilarating journey in conquering the 2,865-meter peak, passing through a forest of ancient Do Quyen (rhododendron) trees covered with moss.

To continue transforming heritage into "assets," Yen Bai will invest further in creating new tourism types, aiming to have at least one tourism product in every commune. In 2024, 16 new tourism products were recognised, leading to a record increase in tourism numbers. The province welcomed over 2.1 million visitors and generated nearly 1.8 trillion VND (70.88 million USD) in revenue, reaching 120% of the target.