Vietnamese Cuisine in the Experience Economy and the Cultural Industry: From Culinary Heritage to Experiential Value and Creative Resource

Abstract

Food has become a central component of contemporary tourism experience and an increasingly important resource for cultural and creative industries. This article examines Vietnamese cuisine at the intersection of the experience economy and the cultural-industry perspective, asking how culinary heritage can be converted into experiential value without weakening the cultural practices and communities that sustain it. The study adopts a qualitative, conceptual and policy-oriented design based on document analysis and triangulation of three bodies of evidence: seminal and recent scholarship on experience design, gastronomic tourism, cultural capital, destination branding and heritage communication; Vietnamese policy documents on cultural development and cultural industries; and verified institutional evidence on Vietnam's gastronomic recognition. The analysis integrates Pine and Gilmore's four realms of experience with research on culinary tourism, place attachment, storytelling, gastrodiplomacy and community-based heritage conservation. Results indicate that Vietnam possesses substantial culinary capital rooted in regional diversity, street-food and market culture, agricultural and craft-village systems, and everyday social practices. This capital is increasingly visible internationally: the MICHELIN Guide expanded from 103 selected establishments in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City in 2023 to 181 establishments across Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City and Da Nang in 2025, including nine One MICHELIN Star restaurants and two MICHELIN Green Star restaurants; Hanoi was named World's Best Culinary City Destination 2024, and Vietnam was recognised as Asia's Best Culinary Destination 2025. The article argues, however, that recognition alone does not constitute sustainable cultural-industry value. Conversion requires deliberate experience design, co-creation, place-based storytelling, destination branding, cultural media and gastrodiplomacy, while authenticity, community agency, sustainability and responsible digitalisation operate as cross-cutting safeguards. An integrated Culinary Heritage-Experience-Cultural Industry Framework is proposed to connect community-held culinary capital with memorable visitor experiences, scalable creative outputs, local development and national soft power. The study concludes that Vietnam should treat cuisine not merely as a tourism attraction but as a living cultural resource whose economic expansion must remain anchored in cultural fidelity and community participation.