Leverage for the tourism industry
Hue City will be directly under the Central Government from 2025. This is also the year that this locality was chosen to host the National Tourism Year 2025 with the theme "Hue - Ancient Capital, New Opportunities".
National Tourism Year - Hue 2025 is a typical cultural - economic - social and tourism event of national and international scale combined with Hue Festival 2025, associated with the program to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Liberation of Thua Thien Hue homeland (March 26, 1975 - March 26, 2025) and other major celebrations of the whole country; responding to and welcoming Hue to become a city directly under the Central Government.
At the same time, the event aims to introduce and promote tangible and intangible cultural values, resources and unique tourism products of Vietnam in general and Hue City in particular; attract domestic and international tourists, create a breakthrough in tourism development, contributing to promoting the socio-economic development of the province.
Enterprises expect this milestone to be an important lever and opportunity for Vietnam tourism in general and Thua Thien Hue tourism in particular to accelerate, create a breakthrough, promote socio-economic development, and contribute to the successful implementation of the goals of Vietnam's tourism industry.
Increase customer experience
According to assessments from travel agencies, one of the tasks that the Hue tourism industry needs to solve at present is the low average length of stay of tourists. It is estimated that when coming to Hue, family-based visitors who book rooms themselves will stay an average of over 2 days, while visitors who travel on tours organized by travel agencies will only stay an average of 1.7 days.
The number of accommodation establishments and rooms in Thua Thien Hue is low. As of June 2024, the province had 893 accommodation establishments, with 14,229 rooms and 22,918 beds. This number is much more modest than the number of accommodation establishments in Da Nang or Hoi An, so Hue has difficulty welcoming long-term guests.
In addition, the number of routes and flight frequency to Hue is not high, especially the lack of direct flights from abroad.
In addition, shopping and entertainment services have not yet developed on a large scale, especially night tourism services and products. Travel businesses believe that to retain tourists longer, Hue needs to add different experiences, adding entertainment, dining and entertainment services at night is one of the effective solutions.
Mr. Pham Ha, Chairman of Lux Group, proposed a solution to help Hue retain tourists for longer: “Building Hue culinary tourism products from traditional to innovative; experiencing heritage sites such as mausoleums, Hue Imperial City in the evening, enjoying royal art, nighttime entertainment... are effective solutions”.
Hue is a prominent destination for culinary culture, so visitors to Hue want to experience more deeply and discover delicious dishes. In particular, Hue cuisine is a rich treasure with royal cuisine, vegetarian cuisine, folk cuisine... each of which has hundreds of dishes with diverse ingredients, processing methods, and ways of enjoying.
“This is the strength that Hue tourism industry and businesses in the restaurant and travel industry need to exploit to enhance the experience and retain tourists,” Mr. Ha affirmed.
Mr. Dang Trung Dung, co-founder of the Vi Viet Nam brand, hopes to accompany the National Tourism Year - Hue 2025 by bringing a new culinary experience "full of Hue flavor" to visitors at the newly opened Vi Hue restaurant in the heart of the ancient capital.
“We are committed to creating a classy experience, while promoting sustainable development and preserving the culinary values of the ancient capital,” he said.
This is the first restaurant in Hue to meet the standards of the Vietnam Green Tourism Association, practicing principles such as using organic, fresh ingredients from local suppliers; zero waste policy, minimizing plastic and food waste; sustainable consumption, ensuring energy-saving and environmentally friendly processing.
The first zero waste restaurant model in Hue can contribute to promoting the development of diverse types of tourism towards green and sustainable growth of the city.
Promoting the strengths of green cities
With a series of titles such as “Hue - heritage destination”, “Vietnam's typical Festival City”, “ASEAN City of Culture and Tourism”, “ASEAN Environmentally Sustainable City”, “National Green City”, Hue is focusing on becoming a heritage, cultural, ecological, landscape and environmentally friendly urban area.
Green and sustainable growth is one of the strengths that need to be promoted when Hue becomes a centrally-governed city.
The local tourism industry is also actively contributing to making Hue a leading city in Vietnam in reducing plastic, achieving green and sustainable growth.
Recently, with the project "Hue - Plastic-reducing city in Central Vietnam", the Department of Tourism, the Tourism Association of Thua Thien Hue province, the Hue Monuments Conservation Center and the Hue City People's Committee are making efforts to promote plastic-reducing rules at relic sites and tourist destinations.
The tourism business community has implemented many solutions and continued to sign a commitment to "Practice reducing plastic waste in the tourism industry".
However, businesses pointed out that there needs to be synchronous coordination between levels, inter-sectoral and inter-regional cooperation to build green and sustainable destinations.
“One difficulty that must be mentioned is the budget issue. To have a green, sustainable revolution synchronously from the economic, tourism, cultural to environmental sectors, Hue needs to attract stronger investment,” Mr. Dinh Manh Thang - Chairman of the Tourism Association of Thua Thien Hue Province, shared.
According to experts, the government, people and the business community can join hands in this process. With a consistent policy, better social mobilization, businesses investing and supporting together, people being more aware of green consumption, green living and green energy conversion, etc., Hue will have a more solid foundation for green and sustainable development when it becomes a centrally-governed city.
