On April 28, 2026, Vietnam’s Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, together with the Vietnam Tourism Association (Vietnam Tourism Association), officially launched the ‘China Preferred Cultural and Tourism Supplier Program’ (China Preferred Partner Program). The program focuses on evaluating the destination management service capabilities of Chinese operators serving study tour groups from Vietnamese K-12 schools, with the first batch of 32 Chinese destination management agencies entering the on-site due diligence list. Among them, 5 institutions in Luoyang and Kaifeng, Henan, were selected for their distinctive products such as oracle bone script study tours, Tang Sancai workshop experiences, and digital guided tours of the Longmen Grottoes. This move will directly affect the allocation of procurement quotas for Vietnamese school study tour groups to Chinese suppliers starting from Q3 2026, and will have a substantive impact on sub-sectors such as outbound study tour services, intangible cultural heritage cultural tourism development, digital cultural tourism applications, and regional cultural tourism collaboration.

Event Overview

On April 28, 2026, Vietnam’s Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism and the Vietnam Tourism Association jointly announced the launch of the ‘China Preferred Cultural and Tourism Supplier Program’. The program aims to systematically evaluate Chinese destination management agencies with the capacity to receive Vietnamese K-12 study tour groups, with 32 institutions included in the first batch of on-site due diligence. According to publicly available information, 5 institutions in Luoyang and Kaifeng, Henan (including Henan Le Travel), were included in the first batch of on-site evaluation lists for offering differentiated products such as oracle bone script study tours, Tang Sancai workshop experiences, and digital guided tours of the Longmen Grottoes. The evaluation results will serve as the core basis for allocating procurement quotas among Chinese suppliers for Vietnamese K-12 school study tour groups starting from Q3 2026.

Which Sub-sectors Will Be Affected

Outbound Study Tour Service Companies

Such companies will be directly constrained by adjustments to the Vietnamese education sector’s procurement quota mechanism. The impact is reflected in three aspects: first, the path to obtaining orders will shift from market-based competition to policy-oriented access; second, products will need to simultaneously meet the implicit requirements of Vietnam’s education authorities for course safety, cultural suitability, language support, and digital tool compatibility; third, compressed evaluation cycles will narrow response windows, making it difficult for the normal pace of product iteration to match the pace of policy implementation.

Intangible Cultural Heritage-Themed Cultural Tourism Development Enterprises

For local intangible cultural heritage resource developers represented by oracle bone script and Tang Sancai, their products have for the first time been clearly incorporated into the cross-border study tour procurement evaluation system. The impact is mainly reflected in the following: intangible cultural heritage experience programs need to be restructured from “display-oriented” to “teaching-oriented,” strengthening knowledge logic chains, class-hour suitability, and cross-cultural explanatory capacity; a single craft demonstration can no longer meet the evaluation standards, and must be accompanied by standardized lesson plans, multilingual learning materials, and verifiable learning outcome output design.

Digital Technology Service Providers for Cultural Tourism

Cases such as the digital guided tour of the Longmen Grottoes show that digital tools have been upgraded from auxiliary functions to key evaluation items. The impact lies in the fact that technical solutions need to be embedded into a closed-loop educational scenario (such as preview—guided tour—feedback—record retention), rather than merely providing hardware or content playback; data interfaces need to be compatible with potential integration requirements of local Vietnamese education management platforms; and the weighting of non-functional attributes such as privacy compliance, offline usability, and multi-terminal adaptability has increased significantly.

Regional Cultural Tourism Collaboration and Operations Organizations

The collective inclusion of 5 institutions from Luoyang and Kaifeng reflects the evaluation mechanism’s implicit preference for regional resource integration capabilities. The impact is reflected in the following: the competitiveness of single-point institutions is giving way to the delivery capability of “city-level study tour product packages”; collaborative mechanisms such as cross-institution course linkage, transportation connection, teacher resource sharing, and emergency coordination are shifting from optional items to key points in factual verification during evaluation.

What Key Points Should Relevant Enterprises or Practitioners Pay Attention to, and How Should They Respond at Present

Pay Close Attention to Follow-up Evaluation Rules and Timelines Released by Vietnamese Authorities

At present, only the first batch of due diligence lists has been announced, while key operational specifications such as scoring dimensions, weight distribution, on-site verification methods (such as whether school representatives will participate), and appeal mechanisms have not yet been disclosed. It is recommended that companies continuously track the official website of Vietnam’s Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism and announcements from the Vietnam Tourism Association, with particular attention to the possible release of a draft “Evaluation Implementation Guidelines” before the end of June 2026.

Differentiate Between Policy Signals and the Actual Pace of Business Implementation

The first batch of 32 entities are only due diligence targets and not the final selected list; the evaluation results are intended to be applied to procurement quotas in Q3 2026, but the specific implementation in Q3 will still depend on the approval progress of procurement budgets by local Vietnamese education departments and the willingness of schools to organize groups. Companies should not treat inclusion on the list as equivalent to secured orders, and should simultaneously maintain the stability of existing customer sources from non-Vietnam channels.

Map Existing Products in Advance Against Vietnamese K-12 Curriculum Standards

Vietnam’s Ministry of Education’s revised 2025 “Comprehensive Practical Curriculum Outline for Primary to Lower Secondary Education” explicitly lists “understanding cultural heritage” and “cross-cultural communication” as compulsory competencies. Companies are advised to align with this outline and mark, item by item, the corresponding knowledge objectives, competency indicators, and recommended class hours for their own study tour modules, forming a verifiable course alignment statement to serve as a core appendix in evaluation materials.

Launch Contingency Plans for Building Foundational Multilingual Service Capabilities

On-site evaluations have already included records of spot checks on bilingual interpreter qualifications, bilingual signage for safety instructions, and bilingual phrase manuals for emergency contact. Companies are advised to prioritize the preparation of standardized texts and staff retraining for key Vietnamese-language service touchpoints (such as risk notifications, assembly instructions, and medical assistance), so as to avoid deficiencies in basic language support affecting overall evaluation scores.

Editorial Viewpoint / Industry Observation

Observably, this initiative is less a finalized procurement framework and more a structured signal of Vietnam’s intent to institutionalize outbound school travel sourcing from China. It reflects a shift from ad-hoc group tours toward curriculum-aligned, risk-managed, and data-traceable learning journeys. From an industry perspective, the inclusion of Henan’s heritage-based offerings suggests that regional cultural assets—when packaged with pedagogical rigor and technical enablement—can compete on systemic criteria beyond price or scale. However, the program remains in its validation phase: no final partner list has been published, no scoring methodology is public, and no Vietnamese school procurement contracts have yet referenced the program’s outcomes. Continued observation is warranted—not as a near-term revenue driver, but as an early indicator of how Southeast Asian education markets may formalize cross-border experiential learning supply chains.

Conclusion

At present, this program is better understood as an institutional attempt by Vietnam to promote the standardization of the study tour travel supply chain, rather than an immediately effective order allocation mechanism. Its core significance lies in establishing three new evaluation benchmarks: “alignment with educational objectives,” “instructionalization of cultural content,” and “educational closed loop of digital tools,” marking a shift in China’s cultural tourism destination management services from competition in reception capacity to competition in systemic educational service capabilities. Industry participants should regard it as a weathervane for medium- to long-term capability building, rationally assessing their own preparedness in four areas—curriculum design, multilingual delivery, regional collaboration, and educational compliance—rather than focusing solely on short-term shortlist results.

Source Information Note

Main sources: official announcements on the website of Vietnam’s Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, and the joint statement issued by the Vietnam Tourism Association (Vietnam Tourism Association) on April 28, 2026. Areas requiring continued observation: the release timing of detailed evaluation rules, the announcement timing of the final preferred list, and the implementation status of study tour procurement by education departments in various Vietnamese provinces and cities in Q3 2026.