Despite the stagnant status of the tourism industry due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the
efforts to reopen the tourism destinations as green zones in Vietnam have paid off with some
encouraging achievements. This inspires other green zones to consider a more adaptive approach to
the ongoing pandemic crisis. However, little is known about the pandemic crisis management and
tourism destination recovery. Therefore, this study selected Can Tho city as a case study to explore
how a tourism destination as a green zone can recover during pandemic waves. Different methods
were utilized in this study, including document analysis, field observation, and semi-structured
interview. The findings generally indicate that a green zone could recover their tourism business
under the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. The findings highlight the critical relationship among
key stakeholders and the leading role of the central government toward pandemic prevention and
control. The early response to the crisis from the local governments was found to be decisive,
and the policy-related measures facilitated the removal of potential barriers and alleviated the
crisis consequences. In addition, the involvement of the tourism industry in an adaptive way has
contributed to the quick recovery of the green zones’ tourism business. Importantly, the adaptive
transformation from the tourism enterprises in a visionary way was found to be essential to the
empowerment of their organizational resilience during the pandemic crisis. The lessons learnt from
this study also bring valuable experiences for other tourism destinations and elicit a new approach to
co-living with the ongoing pandemic in a sustainable way. Theoretically, this study provides a better
understanding of tourism management and destination recovery during the global pandemic crisis.
In addition, the research also adds many important practical implications for the tourism industry
and the related stakeholders to foster tourism revitalization during and after the pandemic in a more
sustainable way.