Deputy Prime Minister Le Thanh Long: Rural tourism development must be associated with preserving local ecosystems and cultures
“Every development strategy must focus on preserving natural resources, ecosystems, and local cultural heritages, in parallel with economic development,” Deputy Prime Minister Le Thanh Long emphasized at the first International Conference on Rural Tourism held in Quang Nam on the afternoon of December 10.
The Deputy Prime Minister said that in recent times, Vietnam’s tourism has received strong investment and development, making an increasingly large contribution to socio-economic development. In the first 11 months of 2024 alone, Vietnam's tourism served more than 100 million domestic visitors and welcomed 15.8 million international visitors, an increase of 41% over the same period in 2023, and is aiming for 18 million international visitors in 2024.
In particular, the Vietnamese Government has always paid attention to, issued, and implemented many mechanisms and policies for rural agricultural development, including rural tourism in major development programs. One of the important orientations is "developing local specialties, craft villages, developing service economy, rural tourism based on preserving and promoting a local culture".
To continue to strongly promote tourism development in general, particularly in rural tourism, Deputy Prime Minister Le Thanh Long said that it is necessary to have a comprehensive approach to ensure unity in awareness and action on sustainable rural tourism development. All development strategies must focus on preserving natural resources, ecosystems, and local cultural heritage in parallel with economic development.
Rural tourism development needs to be based on core issues: Always put the long-term interests of local communities first; provide authentic experience values for tourists, while respecting and preserving the good, unique values of rural areas to spread and last forever.
At the same time, it is necessary to increase the exchange of experiences and share good models and good practices in rural tourism development, etc to improve the effectiveness of rural tourism management and development.
Promote international cooperation and strengthen public-private partnerships in rural tourism development. In particular, it is necessary to establish and expand a network of connections between policymakers, businesses, financial institutions, investors, and local communities.