Digital marketing access as a source of competitiveness in traditional Vietnamese handicraft villages

Traditional handicraft villages have become an inevitable part of Vietnamese culture and play an important socio-economic role within the country's development. However, poor governmental policy and regulatory environment in Vietnam, lack of infrastructure, limited management, marketing skills and knowledge often lead to scarce information to access the market. The aim of the research is to investigate the contemporary status of digital marketing strategies and tools used in handicraft villages in Thua Thien Hue province. It will be complemented by finding out the needs of handicraft businesses about the training course and consultancy on e-marketing. The key quantitative research method is a questionnaire survey of 100 handicraft businesses in 11 villages in Thua Thien Hue province in Vietnam. The results indicated that these businesses do not use digital marketing as the main tool to acquire customers. One of the main reasons can be a fact of not owning sufficient IT technology. However, despite this, businesses realize the need for digital marketing applications and are interested in adopting digital marketing skills and training in order to enhance tourism market access within national and international borders. That is a positive sign for future application of online marketing strategies into business management