Boost tourism by exploiting values of museums

The National Cultural Heritages Department (Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism) coordinated with Travel Department (Vietnam National Administration of Tourism) to organise a seminar on “relationship between museums, relics and tourism” from October 22-23.
Great potentials yet to be exploited
According to statistics, Vietnam has 127 museums, over 40,000 relics, of which there are 9 world heritages, 3,000 national-rank relics, 3,000 traditional craft villages and a lot of other cultural institutions… Nonetheless, only some top museums are capable of drawing several hundreds of visitors per day, namely Ho Chi Minh Museum, Museum of Revolution, Museum of Vietnamese History, Vietnam Museum of Ethnology...
Gloomy performances dominate over many other museums with only some dozens of visitors daily, particularly some provincial museums received no visitors for a few months. On the other hand, financial sources for improvement, preservation totally depend upon State budget.
Mr. Dang Van Bai, former Director of the National Cultural Heritages Department, said the practical situation showed a waste of tourism resources since visitors’ demands on tourism and cutural heritages are quite natural. Hoi An ancient town of Quang Nam Province has been able to attract many travellers for its capability of satisfying travellers’ needs. Travellers to Hoi An would have an opportunity to contemplate not only “static” museums like Hoi An Folk Cultural Museum, Sa Huynh Cultural Museum in Hoi An, Museum of Porcelains and Ceramics, Museum of Hoi An Culture and History… but also “dynamic museums” which are cultural features of local people, daily life, precious values of tangible and intangible culture, the close relationship between Hoi An residents and cultural space in the area.
Most of participants’ ideas indicated the reason why many cultural heritages have not been properly exploited or not attractive enough for travellers to come is that there exists a common thought that museums are places to display and store historical objects and evidences, quintessence and soul of Vietnamese people. Business activities, hence, can not be present there. This had made many museums and cultural heritages in Vietnam be hidden from view.
Renewing the thought
“It is museums’ duty to preserve cultural values for next generations, while developing tourism in association with museums is an effective tool for promotion and popularisation of Vietnamese culture”, said Mr. Vu The Binh, leader of Travel Department. Many countries have developed cultural tourism through suitable exploitation of museums and heritages. For example, the famous Museum of Louvre in Paris (France) attracts some 10 million tourist arrivals annually, thanks to selling unique artworks and filming leasing. This strategy helps popularise the Museum’s image for free on international media channels and generate enormous revenues. Spanish Picasso Museum uses visual techniques to create interesting effects for objects on display to charm visitors.
Binh said museums and relics in Vietnam focus only on displaying and introducing objects in traditional manner but diversifying services, promoting images and brand names. Furthermore, many tour guides have disregarded cultural behaviours in their work.
The key elements to resolve the problem are to renew the thought of managerial staff of museums and communities, and to find enough financial resources which are needed to foster preservation and popularisation of museums; pay for museums’ staff adequately, helping them to stay focus on their work and improve skills, he stressed.
The ideas of Mr. Vu The Binh were supported by many managerial staff of museums and relics. Ms. Le Thi Minh Ly, Deputy Director of the National Cultural Heritages Department, added, preservation of original cultural values must be placed in the core of tourism development, which would help tourism and culture develop in sustainable way; encouraging local communities to manage cultural heritages in the areas by themselves.