However, frankly speaking, what Vietnamese cuisine has and has built is only stopping at the level of "advantage" and "image ambassador", and has not really become sustainable competitive tourism products.
In the global tourism picture, cuisine is gradually becoming a special "language" for countries to position their image and conquer tourists. With a rich and unique cuisine, Vietnam clearly has many favorable conditions to participate in this competition.
According to the World Food Tourism Association (WFTA), more than 80% of international tourists choose to experience local cuisine as the main goal of their trip, of which spending on food accounts for an average of about 30% of the total tourism budget. This shows that cuisine not only enriches the journey but also becomes one of the important reasons to attract tourists.
In recent years, Vietnamese cuisine has been continuously named at prestigious awards. The World Culinary Awards honors Vietnam as "Best Culinary Destination in Asia 2025"; Hanoi is awarded the title "Best Emerging Culinary City in Asia 2025", Ho Chi Minh City is ranked 4th by Time Out magazine in the list of 20 cities with the best cuisine in the world. Many dishes such as banh mi, nem ran, bun bo Hue, and Vietnamese coffee also regularly appear in international culinary rankings.
These records show that Vietnamese cuisine has become an effective "cultural ambassador", contributing to promoting the country's image to the world. However, between the love of tourists and building tourism products with sustainable competitiveness, there is still a significant gap.
Reality shows that many culinary experiences in Vietnam are still spontaneous, lacking organization and standardization. Many famous dishes are associated with each locality, but telling cultural stories, building experiential routes or developing into professional tourism products is still limited.
Some localities have begun to take the first steps such as building food tour maps, organizing food festivals or developing street food discovery tours.
However, these activities are still fragmented, lack connection and have not been placed in a long-term strategy to develop culinary tourism on a national scale.
Meanwhile, many countries have successfully built "food brands" closely linked to tourism. Japan with sushi, Korea with kimchi, Thailand with characteristic spicy dishes... have all developed cuisine into well-organized tourism products, with systematic training, professional standards and clear promotion strategies.
For Vietnam, culinary resources are available, and the love of international tourists is also clear. What is missing is a strategic approach to turn those values into professional tourism products with long-term competitiveness.
When each dish is not only enjoyed but also told through cultural stories, when each food street becomes an experience space and when the culinary profession is standardized as a professional service industry, then Vietnamese cuisine will truly surpass the role of a "tourism ambassador" to become a sustainable pillar of the national tourism industry.
