VietNamNet Bridge – All the policies relating to the tourism industry have been bringing benefits to resort developers and tourism project investors, but no benefit to local residents.

Tourism should benefit local people

Nguyen Quoc Ky, General Director of Vietravel, has noted that local residents cannot benefit from the tourism development in their localities. Meanwhile, only the fair profit sharing should be seen as the basis for sustainable development.

“In coastal areas, people have to leave to give place to luxurious resorts. However, while they lose land, they do not receive anything from the resorts,” Ky said.

“Therefore, they remain unfriendly to travelers. They don’t consider travelers as the guests they need to receive warmly. They just try to sell local specialties at exorbitant high prices to earn their living,” he added.

He has pointed out that this is the main reason behind the unsustainable tourism development of coastal areas. The environment has got polluted because local residents have been over-exploiting it, discharged garbage and overcharged travelers, thus making travelers hesitant to return to the localities for the second and subsequent times.

It’s necessary to built up the policies which can bring benefits to all the involved parties, said Ky. Especially, there should be the laws which force tourism investment projects to bring benefits to localities.

The project on developing Co To Island tourism is an example, Nguyen Van Thanh, Secretary of the Co To District Party Committee, said that the main principle of the development plan is to develop tourism in association with the local residents’ benefits.

All the investors must be sure that their investment projects won’t have negative impacts on the environment on the island, and that the projects would create more jobs and bring higher income to people. Enterprises will be required to use energy saving equipments, not to discharge waste water directly to the environment and use the seafood products to be made and provided by local residents.

“Only when tourism projects bring benefits to people, will people try to improve their knowledge, make high quality products to serve travelers and provide good services as reasonable prices,” Ky said.

Green tourism and responsibility tourism on the rise

Analysts have noted that travel firms now pay higher attention to developing responsible tourism because the tours not only can attract travelers, but also polish their brands.

Hanoi Redtours has launched the donation tours to the northern province of Ha Giang with the destination in Sung La mountain village. Vu Bich Hue, PR Director of Hanoi Redtours, said a lot of travelers have booked the tour, turning it into one of the best selling domestic tours.

Vietravel and Vietrantour are also selling donation tours with the programs on donating warm clothes, books, toys and sweets to the children in the villages and the schools in mountainous areas.

The tours have been designed in ways that bear the high community level and humanitarian significance. This helps travel firms successfully organize the tours to the remove areas. Meanwhile, in the past, the tours to the areas could not attract travelers due to the poor transport conditions.

The travel firms in the ancient capital city of Hue are running the community tours to the suburbs. These include the tour to the Tam Giang lagoon by bicycle which has been especially favored by foreign tourists.

In Quang Nam province, Cu Lao Cham (Cham Isle) has become an important leg in the itineraries to Hoi An ancient town and My Son relics--with its green tourism products. The travelers can also have sea bathing and admire corals in the sea, but there is no coral trade ashore. Especially, they are requested to not bring plastic bags with them to the isle.

To Quoc