Also attending were Mr. Doan Thanh Song - Vietnamese Ambassador to Spain, Ms. Nguyen Phuong Hoa - Director General of the Department of International Cooperation, and Ms. Nguyen Thi Thu Phuong - Director of the Institute of Culture, Arts, Sports and Tourism. On the side of UN Tourism, participants included Mr. Beka Jakeli - Director of External Relations, Ms. Sandra Carvao - Director of Market Intelligence, Policies and Competitiveness, along with officials from the Asia - Pacific Tourism Office.

Overview of the meeting

Mr. Beka Jakeli warmly welcomed the Vietnam’s MOCST delegation and emphasized that MOCST’s Minister Nguyen Van Hung’s visit held historic significance. He conveyed that the UN Tourism’s Secretary-General and senior leadership highly appreciated Vietnam’s role and contributions within this leading global multilateral mechanism for tourism. Since joining UNWTO (now UN Tourism) in 1981, Vietnam has consistently demonstrated itself as an active and responsible member, regularly hosting important global tourism events.

Particularly, in December 2024, Vietnam successfully hosted two major UN Tourism events: the 2nd Annual Meeting of the Best Tourism Villages Network and the 1st International Conference on Rural Tourism. These events helped establish and implement global orientations and priorities for rural tourism, thereby fostering community-based tourism, strengthening synergies between tourism and agriculture, and contributing to the transformation of rural areas. They also created sustainable jobs and livelihoods for local people, including women, while advancing Sustainable Development Goals under the UN 2030 Agenda.

Speaking at the meeting, MOCST’s Minister Nguyen Van Hung affirmed Vietnam’s strong interest in enhancing cooperation with UN Tourism. He proposed that Vietnam - UN Tourism collaboration should follow the principle: “The more coordination, the greater mutual understanding, the more practical and effective the outcomes”. He stressed the need to utilize available resources to achieve optimal cooperation results. The Minister expressed sincere appreciation to UN Tourism for working closely with Vietnam to successfully organize the 1st International Conference on Rural Tourism in December 2024 in Quang Nam Province. The event reflected shared orientations and understandings, leading to concrete cooperation activities between Vietnam and UN Tourism in linking tourism with agriculture, rural areas, and farmers.

He emphasized Vietnam’s perspective “Strong villages and communes make a strong, prosperous, and powerful nation”. This aligns with Vietnam’s vision of developing its rural tourism brands, including those recognized as Best Tourism Villages by UN Tourism, in close connection with global trends in green and responsible tourism, thereby contributing to sustainable development for nations and the international community.

On this occasion, MOCST’s Minister Nguyen Van Hung also shared with UN Tourism about Vietnam’s experience presented at the World Conference on Cultural Policies and Sustainable Development: the model of linking tourism and culture at the UNESCO World Cultural and Natural Heritage Site - Trang An Landscape Complex (Ninh Binh Province). This model, recognized and highly valued by international friends, has sparked interest from several countries wishing to study and apply it in practice.

The Minister reaffirmed that Vietnam has successfully overcome unprecedented challenges posed by the Covid-19 pandemic and has achieved remarkable growth, with the goal of welcoming 22-23 million international visitor arrivals in 2025. Tourism has truly become a bright spot in Vietnam’s economic development and has emerged as a spearhead economic sector.

Regarding future cooperation, both sides discussed expanding collaboration in key areas such as medical and wellness tourism; tourism planning in the context of Vietnam’s completed administrative boundary reorganization; strengthening tourism promotion through digital platforms and leveraging advances in science and technology; and cooperation in revising and supplementing the Tourism Law.

UN Tourism also extended a formal invitation to MOCST’s Minister Nguyen Van Hung to attend the 3rd Annual Meeting of the Best Tourism Villages Network and the 2025 Best Tourism Villages Awards Ceremony, to be held from 17-18 October 2025 in Huzhou, China, and the 26th Session of the UN Tourism General Assembly, scheduled from 7-11 November 2025 in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

MOCST’s Minister Nguyen Van Hung expressed his deep gratitude for UN Tourism’s support for Vietnam’s tourism development and affirmed that the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism would make arrangements to attend these significant global tourism events.

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