 |
| Scene at the forum to promote open innovation to develop the province’s tourism industry |
At the forum, many experts and businesses discussed and evaluated the potentials and investment opportunities for tourism development in the province, thereby looking for new models and technological solutions that are consistent with the province’s development orientation of tourism industry; while at the same time calling on investors, technology leaders, and startups to provide solutions to address the needs in this sector.
Potentials and investment opportunities
Thua Thien Hue has many potentials and advantages for tourism development with the traditional cultural identity values of the ancient capital, the surrounding rural areas, and highlands of ethnic minorities. Thua Thien Hue has 7 heritages recognized by UNESCO; nearly 1,000 historical and cultural relics; more than 500 festivals; hundreds of ancient pagodas, ancient villages, communal houses, garden houses; a system of relics revolving around Uncle Ho along with historical, cultural and revolutionary relics; diverse and rich natural ecosystem; Hue cuisine, Hue people and so on.
Many collective marks, certification marks, geographical indications for local specialty products and craft villages have been built such as Hue conical hats, Hue cajuput essence, Hue beef noodle soup, Dèng fabric , Hue ao dai, Hue lotus, Hue - Culinary capital, the countryside market at Thanh Toan tiled-roof bridge, Phuoc Tich ancient village, etc., contributing to socio-economic development, increasing people’s income and businesses’ profit. This is also a signal to improve brand value, productivity, quality, efficiency, and competitiveness of products and services serving tourism in the province.
 |
| Many typical products, including Hue ao dai, are one of the province’s tourism products |
Hue City is also implementing Vietnam’s Net Zero 2050 greenhouse gas emissions target. Many times, Hue City has been honored as “National Green City”, ASEAN Clean Tourism City for the period 2018-2020 and 2020-2022, urban sustainable tourism products; and have received ASEAN Green Hotel Award, etc. Some hotels and resorts in Thua Thien Hue have also received positive reviews and high ratings from international tourism organizations.
Despite many potentials and advantages for developing the province’s tourism industry, Mr. Nguyen Van Phuc, Director of the Department of Tourism, frankly admitted that the there were still some limitations. The service quality at some destinations is not high, the tourism products are not diverse and attractive enough for retain visitors longer. Products and services in the suburbs of the city have not received strong investment, exploitation and development attention.
New opportunities from open innovation
At the forum, many agreed that for provincial tourism to make a breakthrough, new orientations need to be set, including sustainable tourism, safe tourism, smart tourism, indigenous tourism with new business models, strongly promoted with the foundation of digital transformation, open innovative startups. These orientations are set in order to carry out the task of “Supporting to improve local capacity in building a new innovation ecosystem under Project 844 (Supporting the national innovation ecosystem until 2025). To be more specific, the government is a potential customer and provide the input of using technology products of innovative enterprises. This provides the most favorable environment for startups to consider local authorities as the main service object because it is closely associated with the local life and the market.
Mr. Tran Van Tung, Former Deputy Minister of Science and Technology, shared that the province needed to promote and attract the participation of diverse sectors in open innovation. In particular, local authorities and large corporations will play the role of input providers for startups. When local authorities and startups get connected, it is not only beneficial for startups to have “space” to deploy ideas, but conversely, local authorities also benefit from having more innovation resources for socio-economic development, including tourism industry development.
Mr. Ho Thang, Director of the Department of Science and Technology, said that it was necessary for all stakeholders, ranging from the Provincial People's Committee to departments, branches and localities, to create a policy environment and order key contents from key economic programs in order to achieve this. In so doing, it is possible to call for investment, the transfer of science and technology from external factors, and promote the participation of startups to solve key problems in each field.
The science and technology industry, together with the tourism industry, will focus on supporting, promoting and creating ideas, projects and startups in tourism, information technology, communications, industry, agriculture, biology, medicine, and health, which apply advanced technology. Through connecting and developing chain links, local authorities, corporations, and large enterprises not only rely on internal resources from researchers within their corporations, but also use external intelligence which belongs to startups, institutes, schools, etc., to jointly develop and exploit new products.
 |
| Specialties from highlands have been upgraded to serve tourism services from innovative startups |
Mr. Truong Thanh Hung, Chairman of FiNNO Group, Vice Chairman of the National Startup Advisory Council also proposed many ideas to exploit the potentials of indigenous tourism resources to promote the province’s innovative startups with innovative business models which involve doing business with cultural values reflected in tangible things to enhance the product. Another idea is to create experience tours such as “A day as a Hue lady”, “Jogging through mausoleums”; “Experience virtual reality of the royal court and royal life”; “Live slowly in the heart of the Ancient Capital”; “Digital library on royal history”, etc.
Once favorable conditions for developing the tourism, service and culinary innovation ecosystem with new business models, as well as new products and services, along with traditional products, are provided, the competition capacity of the province will be increased, which acts as an effective lever to restructure the tourism industry, promote industry cooperation, multi-sector and multi-resource links for the tourism industry of Thua Thien Hue to make a breakthrough.