The program was attended by representatives from KOICA in Vietnam, the Hue City Department of Tourism, the Hue Monuments Conservation Center, the Hue City Smart City Monitoring and Simulation Center (HueIOC), alongside leadership representatives and relevant members from YST, PMU, and HueCIT.
Overview of the meeting.
The pilot project "Building a Cultural Tourism Database in Hue City" was deployed to construct a centralized cultural and tourism database, contributing to standardizing, connecting, and sharing data to serve management, heritage conservation, and the development of smart travel services.
After nearly a year of execution, the Project has completed its primary planned components, including database construction, descriptive narratives (available in Vietnamese, English, and Korean), image-video assets, a database management system, an Open API, and the establishment of a quality evaluation and inspection council.
Mr. Park Seo Kyee, Project Manager of YST Company Limited, presenting the Project implementation results at the program.
According to the YST representative, the project has built comprehensive data for over 1,100 cultural and tourism spots across Hue City, encompassing historical monuments, scenic landscapes, festivals, craft villages, accommodation establishments, shopping centers, dining locations, and various other tourism services. All location information was gathered via field surveys, standardized, and cross-checked to ensure strict compliance with the Project's predefined criteria and standards (sustainability, regional representation, cultural and content specificity, user feedback, foreign accessibility, etc.).
Notably, the system is engineered with an Open API framework, creating favorable conditions for government agencies, businesses, and the community to leverage and develop digital applications and products dedicated to research, marketing, and tourism expansion.
Speaking at the program, Ms. Kim Na Rae, Deputy Resident Representative of the KOICA Office in Vietnam, highly commended the efforts of the participating entities. Despite being impacted by the historic flood in Hue back in October 2025, the Project was successfully completed on schedule with high quality, demonstrating tight coordination among the partners.
Ms. Kim Na Rae, Deputy Resident Representative of the KOICA Office in Vietnam (right), highly appraises the implementation quality of the pilot project "Building a Cultural Tourism Database in Hue City" during the program.
The KOICA representative also noted that the project's value should not stop at system completion but needs to be continuously sustained through efficient exploitation and widespread communication. Proactively sharing project outcomes with press agencies, partners, and the community will help raise awareness, promote data utilization, and market Hue's cultural and tourism image throughout its digital transformation journey.
Mr. Nguyen Thanh Tuan Anh, Deputy Director of the Project Management Unit for Construction Investment Area 1 of Hue City and representative of the KOICA project management unit in Hue, highly valued the establishment of the Advisory Council, which significantly elevated the database quality. He expressed expectations that the Open API platform will become a vital data source for agencies and enterprises to continue exploring and advancing the city's digital cultural-tourism ecosystem.
Mr. Nguyen Thanh Tuan Anh, Deputy Director of the Project Management Unit for Construction Investment Area 1 of Hue City, speaking at the program.
The reporting session recorded numerous feedback and evaluation remarks regarding the grand scale, professionalism, and high data quality achieved by the project's executing units. Additional suggestions were made regarding the handover plan, data integration, and other related procedures to maintain and maximize data value under the strict criteria of being "accurate, sufficient, clean, and live."
Ms. Nguyen Thị Thanh Thuy, Deputy Director of HueCIT, speaking at the program.
Addressing the event, Ms. Nguyen Thi Thanh Thuy, Deputy Director of HueCIT, extended her gratitude to the organizations and units for their close collaboration throughout the Project. In her dual role as both a coordinating executive unit and a beneficiary receiving and operating the system upon completion, HueCIT will continue to partner with stakeholders to finalize the remaining content, ensuring the system operates efficiently and delivers long-term value.
The completion of the pilot project "Building a Cultural Tourism Database in Hue City" not only injects a valuable digital data source into administrative management and tourism promotion but also contributes to completing the city's shared data infrastructure. Concurrently, the project reaffirms HueCIT’s pivotal role in accompanying regulatory bodies and international partners to build and digitize data, driving digital transformation and the growth of a smart cultural-tourism ecosystem in Hue.