A 3D illustration of the original Quoc hoc Hue (Hue national school) (Photo: )

Thua Thien-Hue (VNA) – As one of the major tourist destinations of Vietnam, the central province of Thua Thien-Hue has managed to maintain operations by applying various measures to adapt to COVID-19 pandemic situation.

According to the provincial Department of Tourism, so far this year, the locality has welcomed 16,000-19,000 visitors each month. A number of small accommodation facilities have shut down, but four and five-star hotels as well as coastal resorts have still opened for visitors.

Director of the department Tran Huu Thuy Giang said that the Thua Thien-Hue tourism sector is speeding up digital transformation and creating more interesting tourism products for visitors on the Internet space. The sector has made a 3D map on its destinations. At each site, automatic presentation is provided, from which visitors can hear after scanning the QR code using their smartphones.

Particularly, the digital transformation has been made in association with tourism promotion activities, thus optimising advertising activities on outstanding tourism products of the locality, Giang said.

Giang added that leaders of the provincial Department of Tourism have worked with major social media networks in Vietnam such as Facebook, Tik Tok, Zalo and Youtube to seek support in promoting Hue tourism image.

ಌ Through their technology and data in tourists, those platforms will help popularise Hue tourism through particular tourism products, according to Giang who took the promotion of “Hue - Capital of Ao Dai” and “Hue - Capital of Cuisine” programmes as examples. Giang said that the promotion of local tourism will be made in association with the introduction of destination for hiring and tailoring Ao Dai (Vietnamese long dress) as well as best locations for taking pictures with Ao Dai, along with outstanding restaurants and hotels serving royal dishes and foods for vegetarians, making it easier for tourists to explore and enjoy the specialties.

Hue, which was the imperial capital of Vietnam for over 100 years, is home to five heritages recognised by UNESCO (Photo: VNA)

Besides, the provincial tourism sector is designing a programme to promote the heritage and culture of the Hue ancient capital city in foreign countries in a hope to actively prepare for the recovery of international tourism markets when COVID-19 is put under good control.

The Department of Tourism of Thua-Thien Hue will coordinate with the US-based CNN channel to conduct a tourism promotion package in eight weeks in 2022, with 30-second advertisement on tourism of Thua Thien-Hue to be aired in major programmes and digital platforms of CNN, targeting major markets such as the Republic of Korea, Thailand, Germany, the US, the UK and Taiwan (China).

Along with efforts in speeding up digital transformation, the province has paid great attention to human resources training to serve tourism sector. The provincial Department of Tourism has shaken hands with the Department of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs to organise training courses for chefs serving royal and vegan dishes, as well as courses on community-based tourism.

Commenting on the prospect of tourism recovery in the rest of the year and in 2022, Giang said that it will greatly depend on the capacity in controlling the pandemic and the COVID-19 vaccine coverage in the province. Weather conditions is also a factor affecting the tourism sector of central localities, particularly in the flooding season, Giang added.

Hue, which was the imperial capital of Vietnam for over 100 years, is home to five heritages recognised by UNESCO, which are the Hue ancient citadel relic complex – a World Cultural Heritage site; Nha Nhac (Hue royal court music)- an intangible cultural heritage item; Nguyen Dynasty’s wood blocks – a documentary heritage item; Nguyen Dynasty’s Chau ban (royal administrative documents) – part of the Asia-Pacific Register of UNESCO’s Memory of the World Programme; and literature on Hue royal architecture - a documentary heritage.

The Hue imperial citadel relic was ranked second among top seven tourism attractions of Vietnam in 2017./.