Ecosystem of multi-functional cultural complexes
The phrases "music tourism", "cinema tourism", "concert tourism" became popular in Vietnam from 2024 when a series of concerts originating from reality TV shows exploded widely, attracting audiences across the country.
According to the report of the Vietnam Music Industry 2024-2025, in 2024 there are more than 50 large concerts stretching from North to South, attracting hundreds of thousands of spectators.
The two famous concert series "Anh Trai Say Hi" and "Anh Trai Vuot Ngan Chong Gai" alone created record revenue of more than 1,000 billion VND, with one performance night in Hung Yen reaching 340 billion VND and more than 50,000 attendees.
Leading to "sold out" ticket sales just a few dozen minutes after opening for sale, the concerts "Anh Trai Say Hi", "Anh Trai Vuot Ngan Chong Gai" also attracted a large number of audiences from provinces flocking to Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, each time they held concerts.
Professionalization in organization is helping music producers and performers in Vietnam approach international standards, maximizing economic revenue from the entertainment ecosystem of the concert. Many famous international stars such as: Blackpink, G-Dragon... have chosen Vietnam as a destination on their tour organization map.
Media expert Hong Quang Minh assessed that a series of large-scale music concerts are magnets attracting local tourism accompanied by ecosystems such as air tickets, room booking, accommodation, local shopping costs, city image promotion...
From 2024-2025, before the breakthrough of music concerts, a series of large economic groups and famous banks such as: Vingroup, Masan, Techcombank, VIB bank have spent heavily and invested in the performing arts industry.
Besides, cinema - with a trillion-VND "guidance" from a series of high-grossing Vietnamese films such as: Red Rain, Death in the Air, Four Guardians... has brought in total domestic film revenue this year of 3,650 billion VND, nearly double compared to 2024 (about 1,900 billion VND).
The great success of high-grossing films such as Red Rain, Tunnels: Sun in the Dark also brought a big "wave" of tourism to historical sites in Quang Tri and Ho Chi Minh City in 2025.
Many large enterprises have also established film production companies to create a more vibrant and competitive Vietnamese film market in 2026.
Assoc. Prof. Dr. Bui Hoai Son - Standing Member of the National Assembly's Committee for Culture and Education assessed that it is necessary to create an ecosystem, interaction, and support between cultural industries for joint development. According to Assoc. Prof. Dr. Bui Hoai Son, creative design associated with smart cities, games and digital content, handicrafts combined with technology, performing arts, fashion, cinema, tourism, cuisine, digital heritage... are all "gold mines" that can be exploited to form national soft power.
Expectations 2026
From the strong breakthrough of the cultural industries in 2025, Dr. Vo Tri Thanh - former Deputy Director of the Central Institute for Economic Management Research, Director of the Institute for Brand Strategy and Competition - assessed: "From the change in thinking that began to lead to the change in policies. The cultural industry is actually a potential playground, a market that can completely develop strongly with a large space. That development is compatible with the perspective on development, on new policies of the Party and the State, and has even greater momentum to develop strongly in 2026".
In the context of the digital economy, digital transformation, digital technology and AI artificial intelligence developing like storms, this will be both a great opportunity and a great challenge for the cultural industries.
In 2025, AI redefines the music listening market, when participating in composing and singing, helping many hit songs attract millions of views.AI is also creating short films that are causing a fever.AI "encroaching" on composing in fields that have always valued human creativity (such as film, music, fine arts...) will create an uncompromising race for artists.Issues of AI abuse and copyright theft need to be addressed and tightened in the management of copyright for artworks are being raised.
According to director Khai Anh, the high-quality human resources involved in the cultural industry are also still very lacking.It is necessary to open training classes and invite international experts to teach, to strengthen the quality human resources.
Assoc. Prof. Dr. Bui Hoai Son assessed: "Cultural tourism, cinema and music are accelerating but lack synchronization in creative infrastructure, high-quality human resources, value chain leaders and modern management mechanisms.
Assoc. Prof. Dr. Bui Hoai Son believes that the State needs to improve the legal framework on intellectual property, digital copyright, film law, art activities law, expand financial mechanisms, tax incentives, cultural industry development support funds and PPP (Public-Private Partnership) mechanisms - to attract businesses to invest in large infrastructure.
Local authorities and cities also need to get involved drastically, to make every city and province across the country destinations, "creative cities", "city of festivals", "city of cinema"... creating a supply chain, attracting investment and developing more breakthroughs in the multi-functional cultural ecosystem.
