A Collaborative Agreement has been signed on October 19 between the EU-funded Environmentally and Socially Responsible Tourism Capacity Development Programme in Viet Nam (ESRT) and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) Representative Office in Viet Nam.
The main purpose of this Agreement is to establish a framework for cooperation between ESRT and UNESCO within which the two parties can assist each other in the implementation of common activities to support and promote sustainable tourism development in the country.
Following the signing of this Agreement, a number of activities at provincial and national level will be conducted throughout 2013-2014, such as a Professional Guide Training with the aim of expanding and formalizing the Heritage Specialist Guide programme for all World Heritage sites in Viet Nam. Within this programme, ESRT will incorporate the Heritage Specialist Guide Modules and certification into the VTOS/VTCB system, while UNESCO will develop training materials and standards, including the Site Modules for Viet Nam’s seven World Heritage sites.
Other activities to be jointly undertaken by ESRT and UNESCO include improvement of quality visitor information centres in key tourism destinations to connect visitors with local communities; standardizing visitor satisfaction surveys and supporting tourism industry’s data systems; diversifying tourism services and products; supporting visitor management plans at selected sites; and an educational programme on environmental and conservation capacity building.
Speaking at the signing ceremony, Ms. Katherine Muller-Marin, UNESCO Representative to Viet Nam, said: “UNESCO Ha Noi and ESRT have individually been very active in building capacity for and promoting sustainable tourism development in Viet Nam over the last few years. This is absolutely an important step to consolidate recourses of both parties for mutual goals and objectives. At the same time, this event could just be the very first step to bring all tourism related donor-funded project initiatives in Viet Nam together so that successful practices and toolkits will be shared and lessons learned will be shared and replicated exchanged on a larger scale”.
UNESCO Hanoi’s sustainable tourism programme
Since 2009, UNESCO has been working with World Heritage sites, Biosphere Reserves and Global Geoparks in Viet Nam to promote sustainable tourism development. In particular, UNESCO has significantly contributed to the implementation of pilot projects demonstrating good management practice as well as the development of toolkits to be applied in other sites. Under these main activities, UNESCO’s support has focused on two main areas: supporting sites to develop sound visitor management plans, and supporting sites to improve their presentation to the tourist market including the provision of more appropriate information through strengthened information centers, information signs and panels, promotional materials and tourist guides. To date, support has been focused in Quang Nam province, home to the World Heritage sites of Hoi An and My Son and the Cham Island Biosphere Reserve.
The results achieved from UNESCO’s support to Quang Nam have shown concrete contributions to the management and protection of sites against rapid tourism development, while providing the visitors with quality information and a more authentic experience.
Environmentally and Socially Responsible Tourism Capacity Development Programme (ESRT)
The EU-funded “Environmentally and Socially Responsible Tourism Capacity Development Programme (ESRT)” is a sector capacity-building programme for all major stakeholders in the tourism sector in Vietnam. It is designed to integrate responsible tourism practices into all aspects of policy, planning, destination management, business operations, education and awareness-raising at national, regional and provincial levels. Responsible tourism principles will provide the foundation for creating a more sustainable, competitive and higher yielding tourism sector that expands opportunities for the poor and other disadvantaged groups such as women and ethnic minorities.
The ESRT seeks to build the capacity of the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism (MCST) and particularly the Vietnam National Tourism Administration (VNAT), in responsible tourism policy making, planning and management. At a more operational level, similar efforts will be deployed towards provincial tourism administrators, associations, civil society organisations and local communities.
Source: ESRT
