Minister of Culture, Sports and Tourism Nguyen Van Hung answers questions from National Assembly deputies. Photo: VOV

Asked about a tourism statistics system in Vietnam, Minister Hung, said that since 2009, the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism has created a methodology for building a tourism statistical system in Vietnam. He pointed six groups of statistics: the number of international visitors, the number of domestic visitors, spending of international visitors, spending of domestic visitors, revenue of catering services, and travel revenue. These indicators will help plan policies and promote effective and sustainable development of Vietnamese tourism, according to Minister Nguyen Van Hung.

“The Ministry will continue to focus on improving the effectiveness of tourism statistics, coordinate with the Ministry of Public Security to use population data, identification and electronic authentication to create a tourism database, to manage tourism and the number of tourists for  more accurate planning. We will also coordinate with the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development to collect more statistics on tourist needs such as agricultural products and shopping to further calculate the target number of this type of tourists.”

Answering questions about preserving traditional art forms and tourism combined with cultural preservation, Minister Hung emphasized that the Government has promulgated regulations to encourage the study of traditional arts subjects. 

“There need to be many long-term solutions for people to love Vietnamese culture, consider traditional Vietnamese arts and tradition as the soul that needs to be kept and passed on. Regarding the relationship between tourism and culture, tourism develops to support culture, and cultural development will sublimate tourism. Tourism development strategy and cultural development strategy note that tourism products must have a strong cultural imprint. International tourists have recently visited Vietnam for Vietnam’s cultural uniqueness.”

Responding to a question about cultural industry, the Minister of Culture, Sports and Tourism said 12 types of cultural industry have been identified. They include advertising, architecture, software, entertainment, handicrafts, design, cinema, publishing, fashion, performing arts, fine arts, photography and exhibitions, television and radio, and cultural tourism services. Specific strategies and projects have been adopted for each type of cultural industry, whose contribution rate has been very positive, with a pervasive impact, promoting soft power and sustainably developing Vietnam's tourism.