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| Visitors touring the mausoleum of Emperor Gia Long |
Interwoven opportunities and challenges
At the conference reviewing the “Restructuring the Tourism Sector to Meet the Requirements of Becoming a Key Economic Sector” plan and the mid-term assessment of Phase I of Vietnam Tourism Development Strategy to 2030, held in Hue City on December 20th, 2025, Mr. Nguyen Trung Khanh, Director General of Vietnam National Authority of Tourism, noted that the tourism sector has endured severe challenges when the COVID-19 pandemic brought tourism activities to a near standstill. However, it was precisely in that context that Vietnam’s tourism demonstrated rapid adaptability, gradually recovering and transforming strongly.
In 2025, nationwide tourism was estimated to welcome 22 million international visitors and 135 million domestic visitors. This result not only exceeded the “golden year” of 2019 by more than 10 percent, but also helped total tourism revenue reach approximately 1 quadrillion VND, representing growth of over 22 percent compared to 2024.
In Hue, tourism also recorded clear progress. In 2025, Hue tourism was estimated to welcome more than 6,3 million visitors, an increase of over 61 percent year-on-year, with tourism revenue exceeding 13 trillion VND. However, behind this growth picture remain many issues worth discussing, especially as neighboring provinces and cities have made greater strides forward (in 2025, An Giang attracted 24,1 million visits; Quang Ninh 21,28 million; Lam Dong 20,8 million; Da Nang 17,3 million).
Looking more deeply, a paradox persists: visitor numbers are rising rapidly, yet value added remains disproportionate. This reflects limitations in product structure and market approach. The “smokeless industry” in Hue not only lacks high-end services to attract luxury travelers, but also lacks distinctive products strong enough to “retain” visitors for longer stays.
According to Ms. Nguyen Le Mai Phuong, Director of Seni Tourism Company, visitors do not merely seek sightseeing, but are searching for unique experiences imbued with cultural identity and emotional resonance. Meanwhile, the current tourism product system remains heavily weighted toward sightseeing, lacking in-depth experiential activities. The development of night-time tourism, community-based tourism, ecotourism, and wellness tourism remains limited. Hue needs to make a strong shift toward developing experiential products linked to culture, cuisine, traditional arts, and high-quality tourism, in line with emerging market trends.
Innovation for breakthroughs
At the conference reviewing the 2025 performance, the 2021-2025 term, and deploying key tasks for 2026 of the Culture, Sports and Tourism sector (December 27th, 2025), Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh emphasized the need for restructuring to enhance competitiveness and to soon make tourism truly a key economic sector of the nation.
According to Hue City Department of Tourism, the local tourism sector is repositioning its market in a manner aligned with the heritage urban model, focusing on developing green tourism, sustainable tourism, and targeting visitor segments with high potential. The tourism sector will directly confront existing bottlenecks and concentrate on resolving them in the coming period.
A direction well aligned with current trends is restructuring tourism activities in conjunction with the development of cultural industries. According to Associate Professor Dr. Nguyen Thi Thu Phuong, Director of Vietnam Institute of Culture, Arts, Sports and Tourism, possessing a rich system of cultural heritage is invaluable, but these values must be “retold” through creative language to become vivid experiences for visitors. Cultural industries are precisely the factor that adds depth and sustainable competitiveness to tourism products.
Expert perspectives also suggest that Hue cannot merely “sell” what it has; rather, it must design and “sell” cultural stories that touch visitors’ emotions, transforming heritage into experiences and culture into economic value. This requires a new mindset in product development, prioritizing quality over “chasing” quantity.
For tourism to truly become a key economic sector, local authorities and relevant units need to integrate tourism development goals into local socio-economic development planning and clearly define the role of tourism and services within the economic structure. At the same time, it is necessary to complete tourism spatial planning linked to resource conservation, heritage preservation, and environmental protection, avoiding fragmented development that negatively impacts the landscape.
The city needs to prioritize investment in tourism infrastructure, ranging from transportation systems, parking facilities, and public restrooms to waste treatment at tourist areas and sites. In parallel, it is essential to develop human resources, strengthen regional linkages, promote public-private partnerships, and create favorable conditions for enterprises to participate in destination investment, management, and exploitation on the basis of harmonized interests and clear accountability commitments.
Restructuring tourism is not a slogan, nor should it stop at short-term growth figures. It must be a genuine process of transformation that creates greater added value, promotes socio-economic development, brings benefits to communities, while still fulfilling the mission of heritage preservation. Only then can tourism truly become a key economic sector and develop sustainably.