With extensive knowledge and rich practical experience, the opinions of Associate Professor, Dr. Tran Dinh Thien (photo) , former Director of the Vietnam Economic Institute, at the workshop on heritage economics held in Van Don at the end of 2024, were highly appreciated by many scientists and experts. Talking to reporters, he had frank discussions, suggesting many ideas in exploiting and promoting the value of heritages in Quang Ninh.
- Sir, some people say that heritage is a special source of capital. So, to promote this special source of capital, is there a need for any special mechanism?
+ For a long time, heritage has been a source of pride, protected and preserved but not considered a source of capital. Basically, heritage is a burden, we need to pour money into it, not to make money. Now, if we turn the situation around and consider it a source of capital, it will immediately become special. But for temples, pagodas, and intangible cultural heritages to become resources and driving forces for development, helping to improve living standards, and bringing a brand to the locality and the country, there must be special and different conditions, mechanisms, and efforts.
It can be said that this is a transformation in nature. Furthermore, this special capital source, if it wants to become a resource, must be guaranteed by its timeliness. For example, if heritage wants to make money, it must be linked to globality, while tourism that only revolves around the village cannot make money. Or technology must be good to promote and transfer the image of the past to the future so that people will know. The way we put the problem like that is so that we have a policy and attitude to treat this special capital and resource in an unusual way, not in the usual way.
- So with what Quang Ninh has and is converging, is it the right time for Quang Ninh to raise the issue of economic development from culture?
+ In the past 10 or 15 years, when tourism has boomed, many heritages have become resources, although the way they have been developed has not been good everywhere. However, it can be seen that the Vietnamese people are very quick-witted, from the momentum, the position, the way of doing things and the friendliness of the people, making the heritage shine. Many localities have developed tourism very well, making Vietnam a typical heritage tourism model that is increasingly shining on the world tourism map.
In that picture, Quang Ninh is a particularly bright coordinate, because the tourism assets of Quang Ninh are basically extremely rare and unusual heritages. We have Ha Long Bay which has been recognized several times as a World Heritage - Wonder, the titles given to the heritage affirm that we are holding a valuable resource not only of the country but also of mankind.
Quang Ninh often uses the concept of convergence - development. Here, it is about converging resources, what we do not have enough of, we find ways to converge, money, tourism resources strength is also a characteristic. The heritages of Yen Tu, Tran Dynasty, Bach Dang are unrivaled advantages, integrated with the natural heritage of converging 3 bays Ha Long - Lan Ha - Bai Tu Long that cannot be compared anywhere else. The only thing is, we do not have enough strength, do not really know how to make these values become real competitive strength, bringing about worthy development benefits. So I say that the vision is not up to the mark, the investment is not up to the mark, the national attention is not suitable for the requirements.
What is not worthy? This is not Quang Ninh's property alone, but the nation's. The nation must have resources and policies, then the resources according to the policies will truly shine, and only when they shine will they bring value.
Converging resources and promoting advantages, the benefits will certainly be enjoyed by the people of Quang Ninh, and deserve to be enjoyed first because they are in this land. Not only that, the whole country will benefit, the world will benefit because it shares beauty with the world, international visitors will spend money to enjoy this beauty. This is how we raise the issue to promote the value of heritage, which has existed for a long time but now has become our strength, we must be responsible.
I think, the way Quang Ninh has been posing the problem in recent decades in shifting its development orientation from brown to green, focusing on tourism, is to promote such extremely valuable and rare potentials, and with pioneering and breakthrough solutions, we hope to have a very big change in the coming period. The country is also aware of that, so I think the heritages of Quang Ninh have more opportunities to promote.
- What pioneering and breakthrough solutions do you expect Quang Ninh to implement, specifically in which areas?
+ For example, if you want to do tourism, the prerequisite is that the city must be beautiful. Now Ha Long city is starting to be beautiful but it is still not really worthy. Or you have to find every way to connect with the world, of course it is now connected to the world but it is not convenient, for example, Van Don airport has not been able to develop much, there are not many airplanes, international routes... This is the story not only of Van Don airport but of the country, from the awareness of the level of Ha Long, Quang Ninh to Van Don airport must really be worthy of being an international airport, then it will be possible.
Then, are the human resources sufficient? They are probably still very low. We need to upgrade our services, to invite tourists here, it must be worthy of the beauty of Quang Ninh, not just any type of guest. Everyone has the right to come here to enjoy but must behave and treat Quang Ninh appropriately, otherwise mass tourism will lower the level of Quang Ninh tourism, which is not acceptable. To do that, there must be mechanisms and policies for businesses, businesses must do something, not just randomly inviting groups of guests with very low spending levels, coming here will consume a lot of resources, which is not advisable.
We want to start by approaching the issue from the central level, considering the role of Quang Ninh from the perspective of the whole country. The first solution is vision, then strategy and the third is implementation solutions such as inviting businesses, for example, the strategy to connect Ha Long with other tourist coordinates. Then urban development, human resource strategy... I think that when businesses come, they will proactively propose specific solutions and they themselves will act to help exploit the heritage values of Quang Ninh in a worthy way.
- The development of heritage tourism, for example with Ha Long Bay, is currently facing many obstacles in terms of mechanisms and policies. So, in your opinion, how should these obstacles be resolved to develop on a larger scale or serve high-end customers?
+ Developing tourism is extremely difficult, even more difficult than industry. Therefore, first of all, let alone the scale of Quang Ninh developing tourism in the right way and style is already very difficult. That requires us to be meticulous, to have specific solutions. That is why our Party says that the spearhead is like that, the spearhead should be focused on, we must have a different attitude towards the tourism industry, commensurate with the role and mission it can do for this country and has been identified by the Party and State.
Second, tourism development is set for Quang Ninh as a national mission. Promoting Ha Long Bay, Bai Tu Long, Yen Tu... all of these complexes connecting to Hai Phong, that is a national mission, not just Quang Ninh's business. But for a long time, it seems that the development story still considers it almost as Quang Ninh's own business. Therefore, to do that, there must be an unusual system of policies and mechanisms, it is not like a mountainous province, a poor province, a delta province, this is a national asset like that, so there must be policies and mechanisms to support, to assist, to protect, to promote it differently from other provinces.
That is the first factor to be identified. There is still much to discuss about the specifics of that solution system, but creating that difference will change the entire tourism portrait of Vietnam, creating a huge spread of an extremely wonderful national image. For example, I will say simply, Van Don airport, in order to truly be worthy of a true international airport, must have its own mechanisms and policies. There may be competing opinions from other places, but because of such a role, Quang Ninh must shoulder such a mission, so it must be...
Second, resources must also be increased. What are the resources here? They allow Quang Ninh to be more proactive and creative in approaching international investors, in making this entire urban chain truly different, like Dubai for example... That's the approach, but if it were a general mechanism or policy, it would be binding and discouraging. Giving Quang Ninh more autonomy, self-determination, self-action and self-responsibility, more worthy of national and international status, only then can we seize the opportunity, otherwise we will lose the opportunity.
- Thank you for the conversation!
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