Destinations include Van Phuc silk, Bat Trang pottery, Phu Vinh rattan and bamboo, Son Dong fine art sculpture, Du Du sculpture, Quat Dong embroidery and Ngo Ha mother-of-pearl inlay villages.

The department also acted as a bridge to connect travel agencies and trade villages to promote tourism products.

The city is planning to develop this type of tourism in 14 other traditional trade villages.

With 1,350 trade villages, including 207 recognised ones, they create much potential for tourism in Hanoi.

Among those, only Bat Trang pottery and Van Phuc silk villages are capable of attracting visitors. However, the number of tourists travelling to these sites is declining due to several internal factors.

Van Phuc silk village in the city’s Ha Dong ward used to have 1,000 silk weaving looms. However, only 250 still operate, with 400 households involved due to the impacts of urbanisation.

Nguyen Van Thuy, Chairman of Van Phuc ward People’s Committee, said if the negative impacts are not prevented, the silk business may disappear.

According to statistics from Gia Lam district’s Bat Trang commune People’s Committee, the Bat Trang pottery village welcomes about 60,000 visitors both from home and abroad who come to buy pottery products, bringing in over 200 billion VND (9.52 million USD) a year.

However, the tourists have not had a chance to experience the village’s cultural and historical values and participate in making pottery products.

This is the common situation in other trade villages in Hanoi due to the lack of synchronous coordination among tourism managers, travel agents and local authorities.

Nguyen Manh Cuong, Deputy General Director of the Vietnam National Tourism Administration, said the authorities of localities with trade villages should be more involved in tourism development and offer favourable policies and conditions to encourage local people to participate in tourism activities.