Hue holds online dialogue on heritage conservation
The People’s Committee of central Thua Thien-Hue province on February 28 held an online dialogue with local organizations, businesses and individuals on ways to preserve heritages, develop tourism and organise the Hue Festival 2014.
Regarding efforts to build Hue into a centre of culture, tourism and services and a festival city in Vietnam, Vice Chairman of the committee Ngo Hoa, said that Hue is the only ancient capital in Vietnam that still reserves the royal artistic architecture with a system of citadels, palaces, temples, pagodas and tombs.
In addition to a huge treasure of tangible cultural heritages, Hue is famous for diverse intangible cultural ones, including the folk and royal cultures.
The Complex of Hue Monuments was named in the UNESCO list of world cultural heritages in 1993 and Nha Nhac (Vietnamese royal court music) was recognised as a masterpiece of the oral and intangible heritage of humanity in 2003.
In the past years, Hue’s cultural heritages have helped promote the image of the ancient capital to domestic and foreign tourists and investors, creating a strong growth for the tourism and service sector, Hoa said.
However, the development of tourism in combination with conservation and promotion of cultural heritage values in Thua Thien-Hue is facing many challenges such as poor awareness of protecting heritages, limited resources for preservation work, and poor tourism products and services, he noted.
In its development orientation, the vice chairman said the province will exert every effort to turn itself into an attractive destination for domestic and foreign visitors and a great tourism and service centre in the central region.
It will also strive to make Hue a world-renowned festival city, he added.
According to Pham Tien Dung, Director of the provincial Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism, in the time to come, the province will focus on diversifying tourism products, including cultural and spiritual tourism, tours to craft villages, health care, MICE and adventure tours.
It plans to preserve and upgrade some festivals at Hon Chen and Huyen Tran Temples, Huong Van and Truc Lam Bach Ma Zen Monasteries as well as expand tours to tourist sites and local communities, he said.
In addition to conserving and developing traditional craft villages to serve tourism, the province will join hands with other localities in the region to build attractive tourism products, he added.