Le Van Hung, a senior official of the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, pointed to the fact that visiting traditional craft villages is a type of tourism, yet it is spontaneous and has not matched its potential.

He raised concern over some shortcomings in developing such type of tourism, including poor transportation infrastructure and services, the hardship and poverty of artisans and the lack of coordination between local authorities and agencies in planning craft village tours.

All the participants agreed that Viet Nam’s craft villages hold many traditional cultural values that can help promote tourism growth and contribute to diversifying products and services.

They looked at solutions for developing this type of tourism in the future, focusing on popularising brands, quality, improving infrastructure and customer’s services. They also considered a number of measures to boost trade promotion, human resource development and environmental protection.

Currently, Viet Nam has approximately 3,000 craft villages producing 200 different handmade products.

The event was co-organised by Ho Chi Minh City University of Social Sciences and Humanities and Thai Silpakorn University.