People doing community tourism in Phuoc Tich ancient village guide visitors to make phu the cake

Still have "bugs"

In early October 2025, a clip was circulated on social networks recording a young cyclo driver chasing and trying to beat a Grab driver right on a Western street (Vo Thi Sau Street, Hue City). The incident only lasted a few minutes, but in front of many foreign tourists standing on the side of the road, the offensive image left a bad impression on the image of local tourism.

Previously, at the end of September, in Hanoi , Hoan Kiem Ward Police received a report from Mr. Phillip Damien (Australian nationality) about being charged 1.2 million VND by two cyclo drivers for a tour of the Old Quarter, three times higher than the regulated price. The story once again shows the inadequacies in the awareness and behavior of workers related to the tourism industry, directly affecting the image of the destination in particular and Vietnam tourism in general.

Not only in noisy incidents, in the tourism environment, just a small limitation is enough to make tourists lose sympathy. Once, I encountered a group of tourists having to wait quite a long time for their food at a local restaurant. Despite the delay in service, the customers did not receive a single apology.

Mr. Tran Quang Hao, Head of the Hue City Community Tourism Association, Director of Hue Tourism Investment and Services Joint Stock Company, said that awareness, behavioral culture and communication skills in the tourism environment are important factors that directly affect tourists' emotions. "Not only the direct or highly specialized departments, but also the indirect and ordinary workers serving tourists also contribute significantly to building the image of the destination," Mr. Hao emphasized.

In fact, the freelance workforce such as sales staff, cyclo service, tourist boat, service drivers... accounts for a large proportion. Freelance workers do not belong to specific professional organizations, nor are they regularly trained, making it difficult to form a unified attitude, awareness and service style.

Start with a smile and a greeting

According to the tourism industry forecast, Vietnam with many advantages in attractive destinations and diverse culture will continue to welcome a strong growth in international visitors in the coming period. This development requires tourism human resources not only sufficient in quantity, but also ensuring quality, professional skills and civilized service attitude.

The leader of the Department of Tourism said that in the tourism and service development project for the period 2025 - 2030, with a vision to 2045, the city identified the key task of building a human resource team to meet the requirements of sustainable development. The tourism industry is focusing on improving the quality of training and fostering human resources: Training according to market needs, building training programs linked to reality, linked with tourism businesses. Intensive training by field, targeting basic industries such as hotels, tour guides, management, operations...

In addition, one of the solutions that is of interest is to equip soft skills related to the tourism industry such as behavior, awareness, and situation handling. Developing human resources for community tourism, focusing on raising awareness and service skills for the workforce in the types of food, transportation, sales services, etc., to exploit the potential of community tourism, ensuring a safe, friendly, and professional tourism environment.

Mr. Tran Quang Hao believes that in the long term, there needs to be a set of unified criteria to measure and evaluate. “For example, QR codes can be attached to cyclos or tourist boats so that tourists can easily give feedback and rate service attitude. This is not only a management tool but also a motivation to help workers self-regulate their behavior. From here, tourism management agencies will quickly grasp the problems that arise and have appropriate solutions,” Mr. Hao suggested.

According to MSc. Pham Ba Hung, Principal of Hue College of Tourism, Permanent Vice President of Hue City Tourism Association, in order to have a qualified human resource team, the tourism industry needs to conduct a comprehensive survey and investigation to identify the weaknesses and shortcomings of each group of workers; from there, plan on-site training, improve professional skills, and at the same time closely connect schools - businesses - management agencies to form an effective and sustainable tourism human resource training ecosystem.

Obviously, improving soft skills is not a one-day affair, but is a mandatory step if tourism is to become a truly spearhead economic sector. Because the impression of a destination does not only come from beautiful scenery or delicious food, but is also created by the smiles, greetings and attitudes of each person working in tourism. When each worker understands that they are the "cultural ambassadors" of their homeland, beautiful and professional behaviors will naturally become a characteristic, contributing to shaping the image of a friendly and hospitable place in the eyes of tourists from all over.

Article and photos: MINH TAM

Source: https://huengaynay.vn/du-lich/boi-dap-hinh-anh-dep-cho-du-lich-hue-159959.html