That’s the desire of Mr. Ly Huy Sang at the seminar called "Promoting the value of Vietnamese cuisine in shaping and developing tourism in HCM City", which was held by the Department of Tourism of HCM City last April 26th.
The Golden Spoon Contest. Photo: Quang Dinh
Mr. Ly
Huy Sang, Deputy General Director of Minh Long I company, Deputy Director of
the Organizing Committee of the Golden Spoon Award Contest, supposed that
Vietnamese people – especially young generation - have tended to French,
Korean, or Thai food but forgotten homeland’s food. Besides that, cooking
career has not been enough respected in Vietnam.
“The
Golden Spoon Contest was held to honor cooking career and to contribute to
change social prejudices about this career in Vietnam. We do want to support
who can bring the contest to international level in order to introduce
Vietnamese cuisine”, said Mr. Sang.
Also
at the seminar called "Promoting the value of Vietnamese cuisine in
shaping and developing tourism in Ho Chi Minh City”, a food researcher Han
Nguyen Nguyen Nha thought, “If we can solve the problem of dirty food,
Vietnamese tourism will dramatically develop.”
According
to Mr. Nha, clean ingredients – the key element of healthy food – are the true
value of culture and health of a country.
In
similar, Mr. Giovanni J Delrosario, Associate professor of Harbor &
Restaurant's Harbor College program in Los Angeles, thought that tourists
really cared of food safety.
If
tourists come to Vietnam with full concern of dirty food, how could they be
interested in tourism?
According
to Mr. Nguyen Quoc Ky, General Director of Viettravel company, recently 82%
international tourists coming to Vietnam suppose that food is the most
effective element which can define where the country is, 71% American tourists
have a first interest in cuisine, 63% tourists through travel companies want to
have more shares of culinary culture, and generally tourists spend 30 – 35% their
budgets on food. Obviously, food is the prerequisite of tourism attraction and
in versus, dirty food prevents tourism development.
By Nguyen Tri/
Tuoitre