"Developing night tourism: If you don't do it, there will be a shortage, if you do it, there will be excess"
Báo Dân trí•21/08/2024
(Dan Tri) - Acknowledging the current shortcomings in developing night tourism in many localities, Minister of Culture Nguyen Van Hung emphasized that the main responsibility for this belongs to the localities, and the Ministry has a Project.
Minister of Culture, Sports and Tourism Nguyen Van Hung was one of three members of the Government answering questions at the 36th session of the National Assembly Standing Committee on the morning of June 21. Receiving many questions about areas under his management, Minister Nguyen Van Hung said that "only those who love culture will ask many questions about culture", but most of the issues were answered by him at the 7th session and the time since then is probably "not enough to create change". Localities must think about how to develop night tourism. When asked about the development of night tourism products, delegate Pham Van Hoa (Dong Thap) pointed out that in many localities, this model is still poor and monotonous, just walking streets, cuisine, art and entertainment activities, and sometimes only on Saturdays and Sundays.
National Assembly Delegate Pham Van Hoa questioned the Minister of Culture, Sports and Tourism about developing night tourism products (Photo: National Assembly).
He asked the Minister of Culture about policies to develop night tourism strongly, diversify products, provide healthy entertainment, and keep tourists overnight to stimulate demand. Minister Nguyen Van Hung affirmed that the Ministry of Culture has a project on night tourism products based on encouraging localities to study planning factors to calculate product lines and evaluate the tourist market, thereby creating suitable night tourism products. However, he also acknowledged the fact that many localities have made night tourism products but "if they don't do it, there will be a shortage, if they do it, there will be a surplus because tourists don't come". Mr. Hung emphasized that the main responsibility lies with the chairmen of the provincial People's Committees and provincial People's Councils, not the Ministry of Culture. "The Ministry cannot create tourism products for any city. For example, the Ministry of Culture suggested that Ho Chi Minh City rely on river resources and the main product line of combining the Saigon River with the commercial port to create a product line, and on that basis, Ho Chi Minh City researched and created Nguyen Hue walking street, connecting products on the river to have a place for tourists to come," Mr. Hung shared.
Minister of Culture, Sports and Tourism Nguyen Van Hung answers questions at the 36th session of the National Assembly Standing Committee (Photo: Hong Phong).
According to him, each locality needs to have a creative approach, as guided by the Government's Directive 08 and Resolution 82, which is that each locality has a unique, professional, and distinctive tourism product, forcing the locality to think. "If you ask the Minister about night tourism, we have a project, a framework, and suggestions for how to do it, but we cannot do it for the locality," according to the Commander of the Cultural Sector. In response, delegate Nguyen Quang Huan (Binh Duong) said he was still concerned about the solutions proposed by the Minister because they did not mention the whole picture. According to the delegate, it is necessary to come up with a comprehensive policy for developing cultural industries, similar to the Ministry of Industry and Trade's overall policy for developing supporting industries and renewable industries. "Cultural industries not only contribute to GDP growth but also contribute to building culture. I hope the Minister will let us know if the Ministry of Culture has started to develop this policy yet? If so, it can be announced," said Mr. Huan. "Some traditional arts are at risk of closing" Previously, delegate Duong Minh Anh (Hanoi) also questioned Minister Nguyen Van Hung about solutions to improve quality, increase quantity, and meet human resources in the cultural and artistic fields in the coming period. According to Ms. Anh, the training of human resources in the artistic field nationwide is shrinking in scale and quality, many sectors and majors cannot recruit highly qualified experts and scientists, cultural managers with expertise are decreasing, and art training institutions are facing difficulties in being autonomous.
National Assembly Delegate Duong Minh Anh (Photo: Hong Phong).
Minister of Culture Nguyen Van Hung said that this is not a problem that has just been recognized, but the state management agency has frankly reported to the National Assembly. "If there is no drastic solution, some traditional art subjects will begin to close because there is no input, and to train, there must be input, there must be demand for the facilities to be able to recruit students," Mr. Hung said. According to Minister Hung, the Government has regulations to encourage and motivate such as reducing tuition fees, having preferential treatment when studying traditional art subjects. The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism has been implementing this nationwide, not only in the Ministry's schools. Regarding long-term and fundamental solutions, Minister Nguyen Van Hung said that there must be many solutions so that people love Vietnamese culture, consider traditional art and Vietnamese culture as the soul that needs to be preserved and passed down. Regarding the relationship between tourism and culture, Minister of Culture, Sports and Tourism Nguyen Van Hung said that "tourism develops to support culture, and culture development will make tourism flourish". In the tourism development strategy and the cultural development strategy, it is noted that tourism products must bear a strong cultural imprint. "International tourists coming to Vietnam also rely on cultural resources, we want to focus on exploiting traditional and indigenous cultural values to attract tourism. Many localities have done this well", Mr. Hung said and cited some tourist destinations in Hoa Binh and Dien Bien that have relied on culinary culture and indigenous culture to attract visitors. According to the Minister, it is necessary to harmoniously combine tourism and culture, not to optimally exploit cultural advantages, and promote cultural resources into tourism resources.
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