Exploiting cultural heritage to develop tourism

In addition to the scenic spots, Vietnam’s tourism products have their own unique characteristics. This comes from the cultural values, heritage, cuisine and especially the Vietnamese people. That is one of the advantages for Vietnam’s tourism to continue to make a breakthrough in 2025. However, to do that, tourism products must be new and highly competitive…

The attraction of heritage tourism

Scenic spots such as Ha Long Bay (Quang Ninh), Trang An (Ninh Binh), Hue Imperial City (Thua Thien Hue); Hoi An Ancient Town (Quang Nam)… not only attract tourists by their landscape and history but also by their cultural values. Live performances such as “Hoi An Memories”, “Quintessence of the North” or water puppetry are increasingly making their mark. Craft village tours have also become the top choice for international visitors.

Tourists visit Ngoc Son Temple - Hoan Kiem Lake (Hanoi). Photo: P. Sy

In 2024, Vietnam will continue to be honored with the title of “World’s Leading Heritage Destination”, while Tra Que Vegetable Village will become “Best Tourist Village 2024”. These titles affirm the attractiveness of Vietnam tourism. Along with famous landscapes, heritage tourism has become one of the outstanding strengths.

Many localities and tourism businesses have cleverly exploited cultural identity, traditional customs and majestic natural landscapes to create unique tourism products. Typical examples include Nghia Do tourist village (Lao Cai), Lac village, Van village (Hoa Binh), Sin Suoi Ho village (Lai Chau), Luot village (Son La), Xuan Son cultural - tourist village (Phu Tho), Lo Lo Chai village (Ha Giang)... These destinations not only attract domestic and international tourists but also contribute to spreading the cultural values ​​of the community.

In 2025, Hue was chosen as the host of the National Tourism Year 2025 with the theme "Hue - Ancient Capital, New Opportunities". According to Mr. Nguyen Thanh Binh - Vice Chairman of Hue City People's Committee, this is an opportunity for the ancient capital's tourism industry to connect and make its mark, exploit its full potential, contribute to promoting tourism development and becoming a spearhead economic sector of the locality. Accordingly, Hue City has built many new tour products and highly creative experiential service routes associated with the potential and advantages of the locality around typical brands such as "Hue - Capital of Cuisine", "Hue - Capital of Vietnamese Ao Dai", "Hue - Festival City" ...

Dr. Hoang Thi Diep - former Deputy Director of the Vietnam National Administration of Tourism said that tourism activities based on culture and heritage in many places have become a driving force for livelihoods and a key economic sector of the locality. Cultural and heritage tourism not only creates income and jobs but also creates resources to preserve and promote heritage values; at the same time, actively supports improving the quality of life, creating the basis for forming appropriate codes of conduct between people, tourists and heritage.

Part of the revenue from heritage tourism is reinvested in the conservation, restoration, honor, reconstruction and management of heritage. That is a double benefit.

However, despite possessing beautiful natural landscapes and rich cultural heritage, Vietnam has yet to fully exploit its tourism potential. In addition, many localities have developed too quickly, degrading the value of landscapes, environment and cultural identity. The state of concretization, dense construction, inconsistent architecture and the appearance of inappropriate forms of entertainment have affected the unique local culture.

Must take advantage

Therefore, to attract tourists, tourist destinations need to research and promote the unique cultural features of the locality, such as festivals, traditional New Year or community activities. The most important thing is to preserve the originality, not to change or stage cultural activities just to attract tourists. Each ethnic group has its own identity and what attracts tourists to learn and explore traditional cultural identity is when we preserve the authenticity of those values.

Traditional craft villages are also one of the choices of many international tourists.

According to those working in culture and tourism, heritage and tourism need to be more closely linked, because heritage is an important resource for tourism development, and vice versa, tourism is the most effective way to promote and introduce heritage values ​​to a wide range of domestic and foreign tourists.

Prof. Dr. Tu Thi Loan - Vietnam National Institute of Culture and Arts said that promoting the value of cultural heritage to serve socio-economic development, especially in association with tourism is a correct policy. However, it is necessary to be very careful in the exploitation process, avoiding the situation of commercialization, theatricalization, "grandiose heritage" which is not true to its nature, function and inherent role.

Sharing the same view, Dr. Hoang Thi Diep said that in order to develop cultural and heritage tourism in the right direction and sustainably, it is necessary to orient tourism activities and other people's activities within the heritage in a sustainable manner; specify the code of conduct for heritage; encourage local communities to proactively participate in heritage management, linking the interests of local communities with the preservation and promotion of heritage values.

Some experts also believe that in order to develop cultural tourism, it is necessary to clarify what cultural tourism products are in order to have a promotion strategy. Promoting cultural tourism must certainly be different from promoting other tourism products. People working in cultural tourism need to have knowledge and experience in this field. However, currently, tourism human resources are still very limited. The reason comes from the fact that the human resources provided by training institutions do not really meet the actual needs of businesses. The curriculum between schools lacks uniformity, leading to the situation of "each place has its own style".

To solve this problem, Associate Professor Dr. Pham Trung Luong - Deputy Director of the Institute of Tourism Research, said that it is necessary to innovate thinking in training. Human resource training activities must be operated based on social needs according to the principle of "supply - demand", effectively combining state and social resources. Focus on closely combining theory and practice, especially practice of vocational skills. Training programs must be designed in accordance with regional and international standards and be interconnected between training levels as well as interconnected between domestic, regional and international training institutions.

Vietnam's tourism has the opportunity to affirm its position as a key economic sector. By 2025, the industry aims to welcome 22-23 million international visitors and 120-130 million domestic visitors, with total tourism revenue reaching about VND980-1,050 trillion. This is expected to be an important milestone, marking a strong recovery after the fluctuations. To achieve this goal, in addition to developing attractive tourism products, improving the quality of human resources is an urgent requirement.

Source: https://daidoanket.vn/khai-thac-di-san-van-hoa-de-phat-trien-du-lich-10302284.html