The talk below between Nhan Dan Weekly reporter Luan Vu and Vice Chairman of Vietnam Folklore Arts Dr. Tran Huu Son, who has many years of experience in developing community-based tourism in the northwest mountainous region, addresses some of these questions.
Question: Community-based tourism has developed extensively in the northwest region in recent years, and it is considered a way to raise development levels in many localities. Ha Giang province has planned its 78 villages to implement the model while 18 villages in Dien Bien province have been put into operation. However, only a few of them are effectively operating. What are the reasons for this situation, in your opinion?
Dr. Tran Huu Son: There are a few reasons leading to this situation. The most important one is the inaccurate awareness of community-based tourism. The model should be implemented with a focus on local residents, who are supposed to be the main beneficiaries, and also the main actors in every activity. Businesses should only act as a supporter and partner of local residents, while locals must play a central role in deploying the model.
Examples of successful community project are Mai Chau village (Hoa Binh province), Den village (Lao Cai province), and Ngoi Tu village (Yen Bai province). In Ngoi Tu, for example, businesses and locals have worked out a fair profit sharing percentage, and each local household there can earn up to VND 170 million (US$7,500) per year.
It is necessary to reevaluate the role and position of the community in implementing community-based tourism, as the State and businesses cannot replace their work.
Due to this misunderstanding, many people think that community tourism is an easy-to-do project. Actually, this kind of project cannot maintain itself long-term if it is not implemented well with a clear vision. For example, a series of community tourism sites in Moc Chau district (Son La province) made temporarily encouraging results years ago, but have deteriorated as we can see today.
The failure is due to the lack of directed and unidentified thinking in developing a standard tourism product. Visitors will not want to visit the northwest region again if they are offered the same choice of sleeping in a stilt house, having rice cooked in bamboo tubes, and drinking wine from a jar using straws wherever they travel in the region.
So, what are the keys to the success of community tourism?
Experiences from Den village, Sapa town, Lao Cai province have help me to see that there are four major factors to the success of community tourism projects. They include local residents, the most significant and decisive factor; expert consultants; the State’s management in quality, scope of operation, financial funding, and security insurance; and businesses, who provide support in investment with proper profit sharing.
The absence of any one of the four factors can lead to failure or limited success in any community tourism project.
Many cultural experts have raised their concerns that we can count the benefits earned from community tourism but not the losses it causes to the localities, particularly those with unique ethnic cultures. What do you think about this issue?
In my opinion, we need critical thinking while considering this issue. We have been warned about the negative impacts of tourism on culture, such as children dropping out of school to earn money, or ethnic people becoming overly materialistic. These things happen and they are real.
However, we cannot deny that tourism has helped improve the living standard of locals and raised their sense of responsibility in protecting their indigenous cultural identities.
Without tourism development, we could face the loss of many traditional practices, such as the weaving craft in Sapa and many other places in the northwest region. Thanks to tourism, the locals have revived the craft—they not only sell their products to tourists but also export their embroidery products abroad, including to the USA and Canada.
Another contribution of tourism is that it encourages the residents to introduce their cultural features to visitors.
Any development can contain contradictions, but in my opinion, what we earn from tourism development is much more than what we lose.
You have spent years working as a leader of the cultural sector in Lao Cai province, and have also worked positively to boost community tourism in the province’s Sapa town. However, Sapa now receives many complaints from tourists about the overcrowding from travelers and the fading indigenous cultural identity. What do you think about these complaints?
The centre area of Sapa has been completely urbanized; tourists have to seek the remote areas of town to explore its traditional culture. This consequence had been warned by French planning consultants, but it did not receive due attention from us.
The recent inauguration of Noi Bai-Lao Cai highway has also imposed another threat to Sapa as it leads to a sudden increase in the number of visitors on the weekends and overcrowding there.
For the case of Sapa in particular and the tourism sector in general, I think it’s time to make a shift from mass development to sustainable development, targeting three goals: residents are the major beneficiaries, indigenous cultural identities are safeguarded, and the environment is protected.
The State needs to work out drastic policies providing guidelines for the development of the hospitality sector as well as support for residents to address current obstacles in building community-based tourist sites.
Thank you so much for the interview!
