Published:  00:00 Saturday - June 12, 2010

Vietnam will host the World Food Festival for the first time in the southern coastal city of Vung Tau in July, providing a great opportunity for the country to promote its traditional cuisine. 

The festival, co-organised by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the People’s Committee of Ba Ria-Vung Tau province, is expecting more than 80 countries and territories to participate and will feature cuisine, cultural displays, festivals, shopping and entertainment.

Vietnam will spotlight a range of special dishes from all three regions.

Being a nation with many diverse cultural identities, Vietnam is known as an “eating and drinking heaven”. Philip Kotler, the father of modern marketing, said that food may be Vietnam’s national trademark after he visited the country and enjoyed numerous traditional dishes.

At present, besides the Vietnam National Administration of Tourism’s activities to promote Vietnamese foods and drink in ASEAN countries, China, France and Germany , the Institute for Vietnamese Gastronomic Research has recently launched a programme entitled “Creating a Vietnamese kitchen for the world”.

The programme will set standards for restaurants on 100 Vietnamese dishes, encourage foreign tourists in Vietnam to learn how to cook Vietnamese foods and speed up the export of cooking appliances as well as promote Vietnamese cooking overseas.

Large tourism companies such as Hoang Anh Tourist, Vietravel and Saigontourist are running tours that focus on the World Food Festival for domestic and foreign tourists alike.