Consultative workshop on green tourism

The event had the presence of Deputy General Director of VNAT Hoang Thi Diep, Director of Science, Technology and Environment Department (Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism) Le Duc Chuong, Deputy Director of Hotel Department (VNAT) Le Mai Khanh, Chairwoman of Hotel Association Do Hong Xoan, representatives of Culture, Sports and Tourism departments and 3-5 star hotels from provinces and cities in the North.

Addressing the workshop, Mrs. Hoang Thi Diep highly appreciated the initiative on Green Tourism. It is considered as a essential condition for sustainable development and integration of Viet Nam tourism. The workshop aimed to collect opinions of departments, researchers, tourism managers to build sets of criteria in appropriate with practical situation.

In recent years, VNAT has promoted development of responsible tourism along with environmental protection. Under the framework of project sponsored by Spanish Government, the Hotel Department has been assigned to develop green tourism criteria applied to four subjects: restaurants (including 99 criteria for a total of 121 points); shops (including 53 criteria for a total of 69 points), tourism rest stops (including 117 criteria for a total of 142 points); tourist attractions (including 154 criteria for a total of 197 points).

Applying the Green Tourism criteria, tourism businesses will pursue responsible tourism trend, have chance to save costs, build good images, attract more tourists, facilitate local communities by using local human resources and products, contributing to poverty reduction.

Hong Thanh