The Vietnam National Institute of Culture and Art Studies (VICAS) officially launched the programme to develop a digital platform that shares information on intangible cultural heritages (ICHs) in Vietnam. The website is called ichLinks. The event was part of a project co-organised by the International Information and Networking Centre for ICHs in the Asia-Pacific region under the auspices of UNESCO (ICHCAP) and the Vietnam National Institute of Culture and Art Studies.
As per a news report, IchLinks is an online platform that stores a large amount of information on ICHs shared among the member countries of the Asia-Pacific region, with advanced features for searching, browsing, and information management. Researchers, practitioners, and policymakers can easily find and locate information through the ichLinks platform with the help of digital technology.
From 2018-2019, the Institute made ten films about the cultural heritage of Vietnam’s ethnic groups to promote on television channels in the Asia-Pacific region through the ICHCAP. In 2020, the ICHCAP sponsored VICAS with a system of machinery, equipment, and software to meet the needs of data conversion from magnetic tape to digital data, an official noted at the launch.
In September, the Vietnamese National Museum of History announced several new virtual shows to attract visitors, maintaining social distancing protocols amid the COVID-19 pandemic. According to the museum’s director, it has applied digital technology in preserving and promoting cultural heritage for many years. It had intended to build a digital database for Vietnamese cultural heritage (E-Heritage) and has obtained positive results.
One of its latest shows is a 3D virtual interactive display of national treasures, which the museum developed in collaboration with a private tech player. Till now, the museum has organised hundreds of free online history classes for more than 5,000 students, including Vietnamese children living abroad. Based on the experience and success of these programmes, the director affirmed that in the coming time, the museum will continue to design more shows using digital technology to meet the growing demand of the public.
Vietnam is also taking measures to develop rural tourism through digital transformation, as the effective development of rural tourism will contribute to turning tourism into a spearhead economic sector and promote sustainable new-style rural area building. As OpenGov Asia had reported, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development and the Ministry of Culture, Sports, and Tourism held an online forum last month to promote rural tourism products through digital transformation.
The development of rural tourism in the National Target Programme on New-style Rural Development in the 2021-2025 period aims to create jobs, raise incomes, and promote a rural economic structure shift through digital transformation. It will also help preserve traditional cultural values and protect the environment. The Vice-Chairman of the Vietnam Handicraft Exporters Association (Vietcraft), Le Ba Ngoc, noted that rural and ecological tourism accounts for about 10% of the sector in general and generates about US$30 billion in revenue per year globally. The annual growth rate of rural tourism is from 10-30%, while that of traditional tourism is only 4%.