Similar night economy and copycat tourism

Vietnam tourism is facing a paradox. As Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh commented at the conference on rapid and sustainable development of Vietnam tourism on November 15, “there are still many limitations such as the situation of each person doing their own thing, the linkage between sectors, especially between transportation, industry and trade, health care ... and tourism is not tight...”.

The paradox is that although "everyone does their own thing", as the Prime Minister assessed - "tourism products do not really have a focus, key points, there are not many unique Vietnamese products with different potential, outstanding opportunities, and competitive advantages.

Many tourism products are copied from one locality to another, from one business to another, leading to low quality, lack of sophistication, lack of creativity, lack of sustainability, lack of identity...".

The most obvious copy is the night economy that localities are implementing.

Almost all 12 localities in the Project on Developing a number of night tourism product models at 12 famous destinations issued by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism in July 2023, have a similar operating scenario.

It is a road fence - walking - eating - dancing - selling souvenirs of unknown origin...

And according to Mr. Nguyen Quoc Ky, Chairman of Vietravel's Board of Directors, localities are still facing difficulties and confusion in implementation, and have not yet fully exploited the strengths of culture, history, country, people, especially the customs of the people.

At the above-mentioned workshop, Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh also mentioned that we “have not had many cultural, sports and tourism events of international stature, organized professionally and regularly to become Vietnam's tourism product brands such as the fireworks festival in Da Nang and the Hue Heritage Festival”.

The Da Nang Fireworks Festival is still an international event with its own brand because it is very difficult to copy, but the Hue Festival is a different story.

Hue Festival is no longer an international festival as it used to be because the locality has intentionally divided it into "4 seasons" as well as reduced the scale of the event.

And after the night economy, Hue Festival is the next vivid example of "being copied from one locality to another, from one enterprise to another" when almost all localities in the country are currently holding cultural festivals with similar methods.

To be different, outstanding, and have a competitive advantage in tourism, to make Vietnam a "must-visit" place as required by the Prime Minister, localities and businesses, first of all, we must eliminate the copycat mindset, and the easiest way is to start with the night-time economy.

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