Digital transformation, an obvious trend in most industries, has become a tool for the cultural sector of Vietnam to make breakthroughs and turning itself into a source of soft power to serve the country’s sustainable development.
Building, developing digital culture
With the Politburo’s issuance of Resolution 52-NQ/TW, which highlights the urgent requirements in speeding up digital transformation, along with the formation of a national committee on digital transformation, digital transformation has become a must of all sectors.
Minister of Culture, Sports and Tourism Nguyen Van Hung, head of the Steering Committee for Digital Transformation of the ministry, has signed a decision to launch a Digital Transformation Programme of the sector until 2025 with a vision to 2030, with an aim to fundamentally and comprehensively overhaul the ministry’s management, build and develop digital culture, contributing to forming a digital economy and society.
Several digital transformation programmes of the ministry have been approved by the Prime Minister, including those to digitalise Vietnam’s cultural heritages’ data in the 2021-2030 period, promote digital transformation in the library sector until 2025, digitalise data on Vietnam’s festivals in the 2021-2025 period, and develop an online movie distribution centre. Besides, many cultural and art activities in Vietnam have been conducted on the digital platform since the COVID-19 pandemic broke out, winning much applause from the public.
Currently, the ministry is working on three major projects on digital transformation, including a scheme on developing a digital platform following the vertical axis and building infrastructure to store the server system, which is considered the “heart” of digital data of the ministry.
At the same time, it has implemented projects to digitalise cultural heritage and promote digital transformation in tourism sector to provide better cultural and tourism experience for visitors.
Deputy Minister of Culture, Sports and Tourism Nguyen Huy Dung underlined the need to prioritise shared digital platforms for the whole sector and the whole country, including platforms for tourism business and management, tourism data, and multidimensional modeling platform for digital museum development.
Digital transformation brings heritage closer to the public
According to Huynh Phuong Lan from the Relics Conservation Institute under the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, the application of information and digital technology as well as science-technology achievements in the conservation of relic sites has played a crucial role in helping bring the heritages closer to the community, contributing to the process of restoring and promoting cultural values, and turning cultural heritages into tourism products serving socio-economic development.
Currently, Vietnam is home to more than 4,000 relic sites at national level and 9,000 others at provincial level, along with more than 300 national-level intangible cultural heritages. Many relic sites, especially major ones, have acted quickly in applying digital technology, bringing new experiences to visitors.
Many localities have also started to take advantage of 3D digital technology in managing, exploiting and promoting heritages, thus optimising their values.
For example, the Hue Monuments Conservation Centre has deployed a tour guide app called “Hue Monuments,” and the Thang Long Imperial Citadel applied VR3D virtual reality technology in sightseeing activities.
Lan said that in the world, the VR technology has been applied in many areas of monument conservation, especially in the restoration of monuments and landscapes for a long time. Recently, Hanoi has also employed the technology in the restoration of Kinh Thien Palace in Thang Long Imperial Citadel.
She said that the institute is focusing on digitalising relic sites, including the digitalisation of data related to the sites and the sites’ restoration, while building 2D and 3D models for a number of relics. This database system has been published on the website of the Digital Data Bank for Relics and Monuments Conservation, providing data of 4,000 relics, attracting a large number of visits.
Tourism is also experiencing strong digital transformation. A unified and synchronous digital transformation ecosystem in the whole industry is gradually being formed on the basis of the core digital platforms of the Vietnam National Administration of Tourism. Notably, the administration has developed a Vietnam tourism database system; a tourism business and governance platform; the Vietnam Travel multi-service tourism platform; the Viet – Smart Travel Card; and many other technology products to support tourism business and management activities.
The Vietnam Travel platform is an application that integrates many utilities to support tourists during their journeys. Especially, the app allows visitors to give feedback on service quality to ensure the interests of tourists.
The Viet – Smart Travel Card is a product jointly introduced by Vietnam National Administration of Tourism and the Department of E-commerce and Digital Economy under the Ministry of Industry and Trade, supporting tourists to make non-cash transactions and payments in tourism – a popular trend and a goal that the Government is heading to.
With a proper cultural development strategy, strong application of modern digital technologies as well as the completion of cultural institutions and policies, culture is hoped to become an important internal resource and soft power of the nation during its sustainable development./.
