Shops surround outside Vietnam Revolutionary Museum in Hanoi. Coming amendments to the Cultural Heritage Law are expected to bring order to shops in and outside museums.

Cultural officials and museum directors hope that standardized regulations on museum concessions will clean up the mess that vendors have made of the country’s valuable educational sites.

The use of museum space for retail and cooking dispensaries is currently unregulated and ugly.

Parts of Vietnam Revolutionary Museum in Hanoi have been rented out to restaurants and beer vendors while the ground floor of Vietnam Fine Arts Museum is used as an unofficial parking lot where attendants charge fees.

The capital’s Ho Chi Minh Museum rents out its second floor for wedding parties.

Other museums, including several in Ho Chi Minh City, rent out museum grounds to people selling ornamental plants and museum rooms are even rented as office space or warehouses.

At other museums, unofficial vendors have taken up corners of museums to sell food and ice-cream.

Le Thi Minh Ly, deputy head of the Cultural Heritage Department, said the smell of cheap fast food permeated the exhibition halls of many of the country’s museums.

Some museums have banned outside vendors while others allow them to operate freely. Many officials say that laws and regulations should discourage state-owned agencies from using their land for commercial purposes.

Many also say that the museums are not designed for extra services in the first place.

Nguyen Van Huy, former director of Vietnam Ethnology Museum, told a recent conference that the design for the new Vietnam Historical Museum should include rooms for souvenir booths and other services.

Huy said museum services should be well planned and regulated and that museums should establish solid relationships with reputable businesses to promote the museums’ “brand.”

Quan said that while no museum could be commercially successful if it were considered a “sacred temple,” he also opposed the use of museum space for restaurants, parties and parking lots.

He said there should be regulations to specify what kinds of services suit the museum atmosphere and which do not.

Ly said official souvenir booths should be encouraged and that they should be designed in harmony with the museum and sell only products directly related to the museum itself.

Quan said his Vietnam Historical Museum had an “embarrassing” souvenir booth that mainly sold kitsch, postcards and stationary like any other souvenir shop in the country.

La Xuan Hien, director of the Hanoi subsidiary of Vietnam Tourist Company, said better souvenir booths would help promote the country’s image to foreign visitors.

Reported by Y Nguyen