At the Hanoi Tourism Gift Festival, which ran from August 23 to 25, the capital's tourism sector showcased its cuisine and gifts to tourists, attracting visitors for the year-end travel season. At the same time, it supported the efficient and professional manufacturing and marketing of products by artisan villages.

Visitors to the Hanoi Tourism Gift Festival 2024.

Exploring Hanoi's culture through every nosh

With the theme "Hanoi Noshes", the Hanoi Tourism Gift Festival 2024 aimed to boost food and gift tourism, a new kind of tourism in many countries. Visitors can experience Hanoi's typical dishes, especially autumn snacks, and discover Hanoi's cultural story behind each one.

Therefore, the festival attracted the participation of more than 20 food stalls and set up several photo opportunities for visitors. Many Hanoi typical culinary products were on display, including Me Tri green rice flakes, Thanh Tri steamed rice rolls, Pho banh mi (bread street), Huong Mai ‘pho’ rolls (rice noodles with beef), Duong Lam peanut candy, braised sweet dessert soup, Hanoi draft beer, according to artisan Vu Thi Phuc, Moc Lam Green Rice Flakes from Me Tri Village offers traditional Hanoi treats made from green rice flakes or com, including fresh com, sticky com, fried com, and others.

This year's Tourism Gift Festival also promoted tourism gifts from traditional craft villages as part of developing Vietnam's tourism brand. As one of the exhibitors, lacquer artisan Nguyen Tan Phat from Duong Lam Ancient Village, Son Tay Town, said that he brought unique works to the festival to showcase the quintessence of the craft village as well as the unique culture of the northern region.

Hanoi Temple of Literature-shaped ice cream.

Meanwhile, artisan Nguyen Van Su, Head of the Association of Craft, Ancient and Cultural Villages, Hanoi Tourism Association, revealed that hundreds of products made of horns from Thuy Ung Craft Village, Thuong Tin District, were introduced at the event, including various new gift designs that are phenomenally popular among tourists, such as jewelry or beauty and health tools.

"The Hanoi Tourism Gift Festival is a great opportunity for gift makers to reach a large number of tourists and contribute to the marketing of the capital's diverse gift products," Su said.

According to the Hanoi Tourism Department, the Tourism Gift Festival 2024 was not only a rendezvous for craft villages and traditional handicrafts, but also a chance to honor and market products and services.

It can be compared to a platform that allows artisans from craft villages and tourism businesses to exchange experiences, find markets and improve the quality of their products, to develop a tourist gift industry.

What is the plan for the development of gift tourism?

Tourists explore souvenirs at the Hanoi Tourism Gift Festival 2024.

Despite the fact that Hanoi has 1,350 craft villages with a wide variety of gift products, tourism experts have noted that marketing these villages faces numerous challenges. Their gifts have not gained much popularity among tourists visiting Hanoi due to their low symbolic value.

Phung Quang Thang, Chairman of the Hanoi Tourism Association, admitted that Hanoi is known as the land of hundreds of trades, but its souvenirs are not diverse and lack unique features. "Everywhere you see T-shirts, mugs, conical hats or key chains with pictures of girls wearing ao dai, bicycles, street vendors or brocade patterns, so many tourists 'give up,'" Thang said as an example.

In reality, despite the huge demand for souvenirs from visitors, local craft villages are mainly focused on exports and have yet to exploit niche markets in product marketing. According to Tien Thanh Dinh, Director of Asia Jewel Tours and Trading JSC, tourism companies have had limited options when looking for gifts for foreign visitors for many years. The reason for this is the poor marketing of gift items due to the lack of well-known brands.

Small toys on display at Hanoi Tourism Gift Festival 2024.

Talking about solutions to improve the quality of gift products, Dr. Trinh Le Anh, Head of the Department of Event Management, University of Social Sciences and Humanities (VNU Hanoi), noted that for Hanoi gifts to stay in the minds of tourists, it is important for producers to have cultural stories associated with the products that can connect with tourists' emotions and stimulate their purchase demand.

Nguyen Duong Thao, Director of Duong Lam Ancient Village Relic, said Duong Lam has worked with a number of artisans to hold hands-on classes for tourists in traditional fine arts such as lacquer or pottery making. These classes allow them to directly experience painting on ancient tiles, old doors, and more, and to take home their creations as souvenirs.

Hanoi Tourism Gift Festival has become an ideal tourist attraction for locals and visitors to the capital.

To provide appropriate items that convey Hanoi's messages, Le Ba Ngoc, Secretary General of the Vietnam Handicraft Exporter Association (VIETCRAFT), recommended that Hanoi customize each product for its target customers. In addition to creating direct distribution channels along major thoroughfares,  craft villages should use e-commerce as a means to advertise their goods to visitors from other countries.

Dang Huong Giang, Director of the Hanoi Tourism Department, hoped that to develop gift tourism in the future, artisans and suppliers would create products that are typical of Hanoi instead of the usual ones. "A gift product for tourists should have cultural and spiritual meanings, be compactly designed, and use environmentally friendly materials. If they meet the right needs, visitors will buy the product and remember the destination forever, not just the trade," Giang stressed.