Technical team implementing 3D culinary digitalization

Digital technology applications

From the knowledge and experience of artisans and chefs after preparing and presenting dishes, the Department of Tourism has deployed the reproduction of many typical Hue dishes through 3D culinary digitization. The culinary digitization work aims to create a library to store recipes of typical Hue dishes in a systematic way. This year, many dishes have been digitized in 3D, such as: Snow White Bird's Nest Soup, Steamed Five-Willow Rolled Fish, Sugarcane Grilled Shrimp, Green Squash...; vegetarian dishes such as spring rolls, Hue cake tray, lotus leaf-wrapped rice, fig mixed with king oyster mushrooms.

Mr. Nguyen Van Phuc, Director of the Department of Tourism, said that digital transformation in tourism is an inevitable trend and 3D digitalization of cuisine is a solution that brings a lot of value. Through digitalization on the 3D platform, an overview of the appearance, structure, and decoration of each dish will be created. From this solution, the Department will be more convenient in storing detailed dishes in a complete and scientific manner, making it easier to promote dishes in the future. In addition, digitalizing Vietnamese cuisine will be a step forward to help Vietnamese dishes become more familiar to international friends and tourists. When having culinary data through digitalization, the tourism industry will also be more convenient in promoting, communicating, and introducing Hue cuisine.

3D digitalization of cuisine is just one of many solutions to implement and promote digital transformation in the tourism industry. According to Mr. Vo Hoang Lien Minh, Chief of Office of the Department of Tourism, the local tourism industry has also deployed the application "Hue City Passport". Thanks to its high interactivity and bringing many interesting experiences to tourists, the Hue City Passport application helps tourists easily search for relics, landscapes, experience cuisine, learn about the lifestyle of Hue people, and local traditional occupations; making tourists' travel and stay in Hue more attractive and meaningful.

The local tourism industry is also developing an app to explain 35 tourist destinations along with increasing digital transformation in many tourism activities. To meet the requirements, the tourism industry also organizes training on digital transformation and tourism statistics reporting for officials in charge of state management of tourism in wards, communes and towns in the province.

Working together to create efficiency

Since 2019, the Department of Tourism has advocated and determined to promote digital transformation, identifying it as a breakthrough tool for industries and fields to develop rapidly and sustainably, quickly moving towards the goal of building Thua Thien Hue into one of the major and unique centers of the Southeast Asian region in terms of culture and tourism. In fact, the tourism industry focuses a lot on digital transformation. However, frankly speaking, digital transformation requires great demands. Many issues related to practical implementation and effective operation in businesses and for tourists still require the efforts and cooperation of the whole society, from the state, businesses to people and tourists.

Assessing the difficulties in digital transformation, the representative of the Department of Tourism said that there are still many related data systems that have not been fully deployed and are not connected. The work of reporting and statistics on guest data, market share, etc. has not been implemented synchronously. Some travel agencies, accommodation establishments, and tourism service businesses have not really paid attention to and applied new technology to serve tourists. The participation in digitization and updating information of some industries and tourism businesses to enrich tourism and service data in the area is still limited. To solve the above problem, it is necessary to have the support of organizations, units, businesses, and localities, especially the support of statistical reports; investigation and updating of tourism and service industry databases. In addition, localities need to pay attention to digitizing local historical, cultural, and spiritual sites to update information and share additional information to the tourism database.

A desire of many businesses and tourists is to have a digital map of tourist routes, including destinations, cuisine... Mr. Tran Quang Hao, Director of HueTourist Tourism and Service Joint Stock Company, said that if the routes are digitized into the tourist map, tourists can easily search and choose destinations, from entertainment and dining spots in the localities. That is also an opportunity to promote tourism and attract visitors. The above solution will bring a lot of long-term value, but to implement it, it requires a large amount of funding and a lot of effort, and requires a lot of companionship and cooperation to create resources for implementation, bringing efficiency to tourism in the Ancient Capital.

Article and photos: HUU PHUC