Minister Nguyen Van Hung visits the headquarters of the United Nations Tourism Organization

The visit of Minister of Culture, Sports and Tourism Nguyen Van Hung to the headquarters of the United Nations Tourism Organization in Spain marks a new development step in the cooperative relationship between Vietnam and the world's most important tourism organization.

Minister Nguyen Van Hung (second from left) and the Vietnamese delegation visited and worked at the United Nations Tourism Organization - Photo: UN TOURISM

On September 30, on the occasion of attending the World Conference on Cultural Policy and Sustainable Development in Spain, Minister Nguyen Van Hung visited and worked with the United Nations Tourism Organization (UN Tourism).

This visit is considered by UN Tourism to be of historical significance, affirming Vietnam's increasingly important role in the multilateral mechanism on global tourism.

Active, responsible member

Accompanying the Minister were Mr. Doan Thanh Song - Vietnamese Ambassador to Spain, Director of the Department of International Cooperation Nguyen Phuong Hoa, Director of the Institute of Culture, Arts, Sports and Tourism Nguyen Thi Thu Phuong.

On the side of UN Tourism, there were Mr. Beka Jakeli - Head of External Relations, Ms. Sandra Carvao - Head of Market Information, Policy and Competition and officers from the Asia-Pacific Tourism Office.

In his welcome speech, Mr. Beka Jakeli respectfully affirmed that the Secretary-General and Senior Leaders of UN Tourism highly appreciate the role and contributions of Vietnam at the world's most important multilateral mechanism on tourism.

Minister Nguyen Van Hung presented a gift to Mr. Beka Jakeli - Head of the UN Tourism External Relations Department - Photo: UN TOURISM

Since joining UNWTO (now UN Tourism) in 1981, Vietnam has demonstrated its role as an active and responsible member, regularly organizing important world tourism events.

Notably, in December 2024, Vietnam successfully organized two important events of UN Tourism: the second annual meeting of the World's Best Tourist Villages Network and the first International Conference on Rural Tourism.

This is an opportunity to develop and implement global orientations and priorities for rural tourism, thereby creating conditions for the development of community tourism, strengthening the connection between tourism and agriculture, contributing to changing the face of rural areas, creating jobs and sustainable livelihoods for people, especially women.

Minister Nguyen Van Hung sincerely thanked UN Tourism for its close coordination in successfully organizing the International Conference on Rural Tourism in Quang Nam, thereby strongly promoting the similarity in policies and awareness between Vietnam and UN Tourism on tourism development associated with agriculture, rural areas and farmers.

He emphasized Vietnam's viewpoint that "strong villages and communes will make the country strong, prosperous and powerful", as well as the development orientation of rural tourism brands - including the title of Best Tourist Village recognized by UN Tourism - are closely linked to the trend of green tourism, responsible tourism, contributing to the sustainable development of the international community.

UN Tourism highly appreciates Vietnam's role and contributions at the world's most important multilateral mechanism on tourism - Photo: UN TOURISM

Substantive and effective cooperation

Speaking at the meeting, Minister Nguyen Van Hung affirmed that Vietnam is interested in strengthening cooperation with UN Tourism, suggesting that cooperation should be implemented according to the motto: " The more coordination, the more understanding, the more practical and the more effective ", focusing on utilizing and promoting available resources to achieve optimal results.

On this occasion, the Minister discussed Vietnam's experience at the World Conference on Cultural Policy and Sustainable Development.

The model of integrating tourism and culture towards sustainable development goals and the United Nations 2030 Agenda at the World Cultural and Natural Heritage Trang An Scenic Landscape Complex (Ninh Binh) has been recognized and highly appreciated by international friends. Some countries wish to study and apply this model in practice.

The Minister affirmed that Vietnam has overcome unprecedented difficulties and challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic and achieved impressive growth, aiming to welcome 22-23 million international tourists in 2025.

Tourism has truly become a bright spot in the economic development picture and a spearhead economic sector of Vietnam.

Regarding the direction of cooperation in the coming time, the two sides discussed expanding cooperation in important areas such as medical tourism and health care; implementing tourism planning in the context of Vietnam completing the process of rearranging administrative boundaries; promoting and promoting tourism through platforms, taking advantage of scientific and technological advances; and cooperating in the process of researching and amending and supplementing the Law on Tourism.

UN Tourism respectfully invites Minister Nguyen Van Hung to attend the 3rd annual meeting of the World's Best Tourism Village Network and the award ceremony of the World's Best Tourism Village 2025 (October 17 and 18, 2025 in Huzhou, China) and the 26th session of the UN Tourism General Assembly (November 7 to 11, 2025 in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia).

Mr. Hung sincerely thanked UN Tourism for its attention to the development of Vietnam's tourism, affirming that the leaders of the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism will arrange to attend the above important events.

44 years of cooperation

Vietnam joined UNWTO (the predecessor of UN Tourism) in 1981, becoming one of the most active members in the Asia-Pacific region.

Over the past four decades, Vietnam has actively contributed to global initiatives on sustainable tourism development.

2024 marks an important step forward when Vietnam simultaneously hosts two major UN Tourism events in Quang Nam, affirming its pioneering position in developing rural tourism and community tourism.

These events not only create new directions for global tourism, but also contribute to the implementation of the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

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Source: https://tuoitre.vn/bo-truong-nguyen-van-hung-tham-tru-so-to-chuc-du-lich-lien-hop-quoc-20251002153721627.htm