Overview of the meeting (Photo: TITC)

At the meeting, MOCST’s Minister Nguyen Van Hung thanked WTTC for the regular attention, support and accompanying Vietnam in major events such as forums and conferences organised by the Vietnamese Government to make recommendations on rapid and sustainable tourism development. At the same time sharing, providing reports, general recommendations on the environment, and specific recommendations for countries, including Vietnam.

MOCST's Nguyen Van Hung at the meeting (Photo: TITC)

Ms. Liz Ortiguera - Managing Director of Asia-Pacific of World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC) said, WTTC has made many contributions to sustainable and responsible global development. In addition to the general report presented earlier at the Meeting, WTTC also shared a separate report on the impact of Vietnam's tourism and travel industry on the environment and society. Asia - Pacific is a dynamically developing region, especially the development figures of Vietnamese tourism in recent times have achieved increasingly impressive results.

Introducing the Environmental and Social Research project, Ms. Liz Ortiguera said that the report provides data on total greenhouse gas emissions as well as water use intensity of the tourism industry. At the same time, provide figures on human resources in the tourism industry as well as the percentage of female human resources, male human resources, and salary levels. Besides this report, WTTC also has researched on food waste and a number of other specialties in the field of tourism. WTTC also introduced its website, which brings together these data as well as key travel and tourism indicators at global, regional and country levels, allowing anyone to explore the figures.

Ms. Liz Ortiguera - Managing Director of Asia-Pacific of World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC) at the meeting (Photo: TITC)

Ms. Liz Ortiguera proposed supporting Vietnam in thematic reports, implementing sustainable tourism development projects, or organising conferences and seminars with related topics.

MOCST’s Minister Nguyen Van Hung shared, Vietnam tourism is identified as an integrated and spearheaded economic sector. Along with that, Vietnam's perspective and orientation is to develop sustainable tourism, environmental factors are always given top priority.

Remarkably, at the 26th United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26), Vietnam has made strong statements on environmental protection and is still fulfilling its commitments as a responsible member of the international community. Issues such as net emissions, coal power replacement, and environmental wastewater... are all raised by the Government and have a roadmap to minimise negative human impacts on the environment.

Regarding the field of social environment, the Government of Vietnam is establishing a balanced environment in the process of arranging the workforce, creating jobs for women, youth and other social security regimes to have an equal, happy living environment.

MOCST’s Minister Nguyen Van Hung gifting souvenir to H.E. Ms. Liz Ortiguera - Managing Director of Asia-Pacific of World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC) (Photo: TITC)

The Minister highly appreciated WTTC's recommendations on environmental and social issues, which are all practical and useful content in the process of researching and planning Vietnam's development policies.

To truly live in a green - clean - beautiful world, the Minister said that each country needs to join hands and take specific, practical actions. Therefore, in the coming time, Vietnam will focus on keeping the ecological environment clean and sustainable at destinations, tourist sites, and tourist areas; continue to create a balanced social environment, promote the interests of workers…

MOCST’s Minister Nguyen Van Hung also suggested applying scientific reports that WTTC has researched to apply in planning policies and strategies for developing Vietnam tourism. In addition, WTTC is requested to support the development of a market report for Vietnamese tourism with an assessment of the competitiveness of Vietnam tourism and world trends affecting the tourism and travel industry. The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism is ready to accompany WTTC when it has a proposal to handle and provide necessary data and documents to report as closely as possible to reality.

​Tourism Information Technology Center