Urgent requirements for sustainable tourism development

VHO - Building a unified, modern and multi-data integrated digital tourism map platform is becoming an urgent requirement for Vietnam to develop sustainable tourism and improve destination management capacity in the new period.

3D Map of Ho Chi Minh City Tourism

Distributed travel data, the industry's biggest challenge

At the stage when Vietnam enters the comprehensive digital transformation process, Resolution 57-NQ/TW of the Politburo sets out a strategic requirement: By 2030, state management activities must be operated in a digital environment, with seamless connections based on a "correct, sufficient, clean, and live data system".

This is not only a general direction for the public administration, but also a transformational imperative for the tourism industry - a sector that relies heavily on data, experiences and real-time interactions.

In that digital transformation picture, the digital tourism map platform holds a central position. This is an important component of the smart tourism ecosystem, where data is integrated, standardized and visualized to serve management, operation, forecasting and policy planning. However, reality shows that Vietnam is facing many bottlenecks.

In practice, tourism data currently exists in a “do-it-yourself” model: Each locality builds its own management software, each business develops its own system, and each unit operates according to different criteria, structures, and presentation methods.

Deputy Director of the Vietnam National Tourism Administration Pham Van Thuy said that this is a reality that must be frankly admitted: "Vietnam's tourism data is currently scattered, lacking standardization, and lacking synchronization between the central government, localities, and businesses."

This fragmentation makes it difficult for management agencies to get an overall picture of tourism activities; destinations lack tools to monitor capacity, visitor flow, and environmental conditions; and businesses have difficulty accessing shared data sources to upgrade products and optimize tourist experiences.

Many local digital maps only serve as promotional tools, lacking administrative data, regional connectivity, and integration capabilities. Many products do not even reflect the core elements of sustainable tourism, from visitor flows to environmental warnings and social impacts.

In the context of Resolution 57-NQ/TW requiring all state management activities to operate in a digital environment, such a fragmented data structure is a major barrier to the progress of the tourism industry.

Digital maps are digital infrastructure that helps manage destinations.

Digital tourism map - an administrative tool, not just an application to introduce destinations

Experiences shared by many localities and experts have shown a common perception: Digital tourism maps are not just navigation maps. They are digital infrastructures that help manage destinations, support forecasting, monitoring and policy making.

Deputy Head of the Tourism Department, Vietnam National Administration of Tourism Hoang Hoa Quan emphasized the core requirements of a sustainable platform: "To be sustainable, the map must integrate destination management data and must control the problem of destination overload."

He also believes that every process must start from original data, be standardized and deployed consistently: "We must ensure data standards, develop from original data to localities; clearly identify the subjects in the process of updating information and data".

This opinion raises an important requirement: Digital maps cannot be developed according to trends or short-term projects. It must become a long-term platform, operating on a unified set of data standards, ensuring a continuous flow of information between the central government, local authorities, and businesses.

From a local perspective, Deputy Director of the Hanoi Department of Tourism Nguyen Tran Quang gave a very clear warning: “If there is no uniformity in the platform, data cannot be interconnected… Therefore, it is necessary to build shared data and integrate many utilities.”

Meanwhile, the representative of the Ministry of Science and Technology, Mr. Hoang Son, looked at the problem in the long term when proposing that digital maps must integrate traffic density, “low-sky” data, smart traffic data and artificial intelligence - factors that will shape the travel experience in the near future.

These opinions show that Vietnam's digital tourism map needs to go beyond the scope of promotion to become a platform for synthesizing spatial - economic - social - environmental data, serving sustainable development.

Digital transformation in tourism is being promoted.

Directions and solutions to form a national digital map platform

From the above analysis, it is possible to identify groups of mandatory solutions for Vietnam to build a modern digital tourism map platform, in line with the spirit of Resolution 57-NQ/TW and Resolution 82/NQ-CP.

To build a modern digital tourism map platform, the first important solution is to standardize data and form an industry-wide master data system.

This requires Vietnam to soon issue a unified set of tourism data standards nationwide, ensuring that all information is digitized in the same structure, with the ability to connect and share.

The requirements of Resolution 57-NQ/TW on “correct, sufficient, clean, and live data” must become the criteria throughout the process of collecting and operating the system.

At the same time, it is necessary to clearly define the responsibility for updating data between central agencies, localities and enterprises, ensuring that each entity performs its role in maintaining a complete and reliable data source, creating a foundation for state management operations in the digital environment.

Besides data standardization, Vietnam needs to develop a unified digital map platform based on WebGIS and MobileGIS, capable of integrating and connecting data on a national scale.

The system should operate as an “open infrastructure framework,” allowing any existing software and databases in the local areas to connect directly without having to be built from scratch.

Only when platforms operating in provinces and cities can "plug-in" into the common system, can the tourism industry avoid technological segregation and have a consistent data source.

On that unified platform, data serving sustainable development needs to be integrated systematically and continuously.

Information such as destination capacity, real-time passenger flows, environmental conditions, culture and social impact must be digitized alongside smart traffic data and safety alerts.

In the new development, digital maps also need to take into account modern spatial data layers, including “low-sky” data, which will become essential infrastructure for many future tourism models.

Along with that, the formation of a digital technology ecosystem for tourism is a prerequisite. Management agencies need to create a mechanism for businesses to participate in developing utilities based on open data, while encouraging the application of artificial intelligence in itinerary suggestions, customer flow analysis and destination load forecasting.

When technology is operated on the same original data platform, new digital products will have the opportunity to spread and serve tourists more effectively.

Need to standardize data and form an industry-wide master data system

To bring these orientations into life, pilot models need to be deployed in localities with good digital capacity such as: Ho Chi Minh City, Hanoi, Da Nang, Quang Ninh, Ninh Binh...

The test results must be comprehensively evaluated according to sustainability criteria, before being replicated nationwide to ensure feasibility and continuity for the next stage.

Digital tourism maps can only play their full role when connected with related industries. Connecting data with land use planning, transportation, environmental resources or cultural heritage protection and promotion systems will help build a multidimensional picture, opening up the possibility of managing destinations in a smart, synchronous and sustainable way.

This is also the requirement clearly stated by Deputy Director Pham Van Thuy: "Close coordination with localities is needed, standard data is digitized, and databases are connected with relevant sectors and units."

The digital tourism map platform not only serves tourists, not only supports businesses and is not just a management tool.

It is the national digital infrastructure for sustainable tourism development, where all data is collected, processed and operated in real time; where policies, governance and services are planned based on open, transparent and standardized data.

When the tourism data system is standardized, interconnected and lively, the Vietnamese tourism industry can operate in the true spirit of Resolution 57-NQ/TW, opening a period of smart, sustainable development and deeper integration into the world tourism flow.

Source: https://baovanhoa.vn/du-lich/yeu-cau-cap-bach-de-phat-trien-du-lich-ben-vung-185153.html