Tourism joins hands in protecting the environment.

The program involved nearly 100 members representing travel businesses in the north, the Vietnam Small and Medium-sized Tourism Business Forum (VTF), and the Vietnam Community Tourism Association (VCTC)... Members marched and promoted the program's objectives at three destinations: Viet Tri City, Hoa Binh City, and Moc Chau Town. At these destinations, the group posted posters at hotels and restaurants that met the "green, clean, beautiful, and environmentally friendly" standards, combined with cleaning up waste and improving the environment.

While tourism in Vietnam is developing, environmental issues are also a major concern. In 2018, Vietnam's tourism industry served over 80 million domestic tourists and 15 million foreign visitors. For tourists on tours, travel agencies typically provide one to two bottles of water per day. This means hundreds of millions of plastic bottles need to be disposed of. Businesses providing services also release large quantities of plastic waste such as straws and plastic bags into the environment, severely impacting the environment.

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Mr. Phung Quang Thang, representative of the Vietnam Tourism Association, acknowledged that many small businesses are currently prioritizing profit over their responsibility to the environment and tourism products: "Over 3,000km of Vietnam's coastline and numerous tourist areas are heavily polluted, gradually diminishing the attractiveness of these destinations in the eyes of tourists. This directly affects the tourism industry because all travel agencies depend on these destinations for their livelihood."

According to statistics from the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), Vietnam generates no less than 1.8 million tons of untreated plastic waste annually, accounting for nearly 6% of the world's plastic waste. If considering only the amount of plastic waste dumped into the sea, Vietnam ranks fourth globally. On the global tourism and travel competitiveness ranking published by the World Economic Forum (WEF), Vietnam's environmental protection criterion is a weakness, ranking only 129th out of 136 countries in terms of environmental sustainability.

The practical community-based activities mentioned above need to be expanded and spread further to improve the extremely pressing environmental situation in Vietnam today.