Towards Responsible Tourism in Vietnam: Critical Review and Implications for Future Research45265

Besides the positive impact of the Travel and Tourism sector on economic growth, the development of the sector also significantly influences the natural and social environments.. However

Towards Responsible Tourism in Vietnam: Critical Review and Implications for Future Research

Phuong Mai Nguyen (1),(*) , Nam D Vo (2) , Quang Long To (3) , Van Toan Dinh (1)

(1) VNU University of Economics and Business, Vietnam National University, Hanoi, Vietnam

(2) University of Danang, Da Nang, Vietnam

(3) VNU University of Social Sciences and Humanities, Vietnam National University, Hanoi, Vietnam

* Correspondence: mainp@vnu.edu.vn

Abstract: Since the passage of Law on Tourism in 2005 and its amendment in 2017, Vietnam has increasingly invested in the tourism sector as a spearhead industry of the economy to turn Vietnam into a destination for the mass tourist Along with tourism development, the negative impacts of tourism activities on the environment and society have been acknowledged to a certain extent In such a context, concepts such as sustainable tourism, ethical tourism, and responsible tourism have been put on the roundtable for discussion However, there is a lack of previous research on how the responsible tourism concept is adapted to the situation of the Vietnam tourism industry The paper presents the background of the Vietnamese tourism industry Moreover, based on the survey results with 122 individuals and 20 tourism experts, the paper highlights prominent actions to promote responsible tourism in Vietnam The implications for further research on the topic are also proposed Keywords: corporate social responsibility, responsible tourism, sustainable development

1 Introduction

The tourism sector is one of the leading service industries worldwide In an annual quantitative analysis of the global economic and employment impacts of Travel and Tourism in 185 countries and 25 regions, the research of the World Travel and Tourism Council’s (WTTC) shows that the sector accounted for 10.4% of global GDP and 319 million jobs or 10% of total employment in 2018 The division of overall spend is firmly weighted towards the leisure market, which represented 78.5% of the total compared with 21.5% for business spend, and the sector accounted for 6.5% of total global exports and 27.2% of total global service exports Domestic tourism, which represented 71.2% of all tourism spending

in 2018 and had the most robust growth in developing nations, continues to support opportunities by spreading development and regional economic benefits and building national pride Across the regions in 2018, Asia-Pacific remained an active performer, growing by 6.4 %

One of the most rapid growth economic sectors on the globe is travel and tourism It

is a significant role in the development of emerging destinations According to figures from the WTTC, the industry employs close to 100 million people, representing some 3% of total employment in the world Without question, it pays to promote travel and tourism According to the leading industry group, the Destination Marketing Association International (DMAI), each $1 spent in destination marketing generates $38 in visitor spending across international markets

In Vietnam, this sector contribution takes account for 6% of GDP, generating more than 2.5 million direct jobs and representing an income of 612,000 billion VND in 2018 According to the WTTC Report (2018), during the period from 2011 to 2017, Vietnam ranks

number 21 among the top 30 highest performance countries in Travel and Tourism sector of the world in terms of the absolute growth for four indicators: total Travel & Tourism GDP, foreign visitor spending (visitor exports), domestic spending and Travel & Tourism capital investment

Besides the positive impact of the Travel and Tourism sector on economic growth, the development of the sector also significantly influences the natural and social environments Tourism activities are claimed to break the balance of the ecosystem in destinations if they are not adequately controlled (Budeanu 2005) Facing the challenges for sustainable development, the debate on corporate social responsibility (CSR) in tourism in general and responsible tourism, in particular, has been continuing for several decades in both academia and business society However, few studies in Vietnam clarify the actions that need to be done to promote responsible tourism and measure their impacts on society Thus, this paper aims to present a critical review of the current situation of the Vietnamese travel and tourism sector and propose a list of actions to promote responsible tourism and implications for further research on the topic

This paper is constructed as follows Section 1 mentions the relevance of the study The conceptual background of the topic with the primary focus on the “responsible tourism” concept is presented in section 2 Section 3 follows the methodology of the study In section

4, there is a discussion on the survey results on responsible tourism actions in Vietnam Finally, implications for further research and conclusion are discussed in section 5

2 Conceptual Background

2.1 Responsible Tourism

To understand why responsible tourism has been posited as an antidote to the negative impacts of tourism, we should look first at the broader debate and concepts of sustainable development and sustainable tourism development from which responsible tourism has emerged Although the concept of conservation per se is not new (Hall 1999), the new awareness of environmental issues can be traced to 1972 and the first United Nations summit to consider the issues of the impact of humanity on the world The summit placed the conservation of the environment into the spotlight of public awareness This issue remained on the political agenda throughout the 1970s, gathering momentum during the 1980s (Standford 2006) This increased interest was manifested in the Brundtland Report, where the term sustainable development entered widespread use The report defines sustainable development as “the development that meets the needs of the present generation without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs Sustainable development aims and seeks to find a stable theoretical framework for decision making in any situation where a person/environment relation can be found, whether environmental, economic, or social” (WCED 1987) Since the 1980s, the global community has staged the 1992 UN Conference on Environment and Development in Rio, which produced Agenda 21, a global, national, and local action plan for sustainable development, and, more recently, the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, a global agreement to reduce carbon emissions

Regarding the World Tourism Organization (1998), sustainable tourism development (STD), is to develop that not only meets the demands of present tourists and host regions but also protects and enhances the opportunities for the future It will lead to manage all resources in the way that economic, social, and aesthetic needs can be fulfilled while preserving cultural integrity, essential ecological processes, biological diversity, and life support systems STD implies the need to secure the sustainability of tourism’s primary resources at the destination level and is a way of obtaining a balance between the growth potential of tourism and the conservation needs of the resource base (Clarke 1997), (Lane 1994)

In addition to the STD concept, corporate social responsibility (CSR) has become a buzzword in mainstream tourism CSR is defined not only for fulfilling legal obligations The idea is that a company must answer to social and environmental challenges voluntarily CSR means different travel companies have to do different things: some engage in raising the cultural awareness of tourists, others introduce labour standards for employees, and yet others set up not-for-profit foundations or social projects for children, families, or other of population It contains the set of concepts which travel companies embrace to make tourism sustainable and fit for the future (Mathew and Sreejesh 2017)

The concept of responsible tourism has been emerging in recent decades in response

to the increasing pressures from stakeholders in the society for CSR fulfilment This notion,

as well as the other emerging concept of sustainable tourism (Krippendorf 1987), became popular topics for academia (Jucan and Jucan 2010), (Clarke 1997) Other synonymous terms have been used in the past to describe responsible tourism Similar notions included; alternative tourism, green tourism, soft, sustainable tourism, small-scale, or appropriate tourism (Lee and Cho 2019); (Krippendorf 1982) Notably, since the Brundtland Report of

1987 proposed that intergenerational equality would not be achieved unless the impacts of economic activity on the environment were managed, the debate and research on responsible tourism have burst

South Africa’s Tourism White Paper (1996) refers specifically to the concept of

“Responsible Tourism,” the critical elements of which can be defined in terms of:

• Developing, managing and marketing tourism in ways that create competitive advantage;

• Assessing and monitoring the environmental, social and economic impacts of tourism developments, and openly disclosing information;

• Ensuring the active involvement of communities that benefit from tourism, including their participation in planning and decision-making and the establishment of meaningful economic linkages;

• Maintaining and encouraging natural, economic, social and cultural diversity;

• Avoiding waste and over-consumption and promoting the sustainable use of local resources

A more recent and prescriptive definition was developed at the Cape Town Conference in 2002 According to the Cape Town Declaration, responsible tourism minimises negative and maximises positive impacts on environmental, social, cultural and economic contexts; involves local people and enhances communities; contributes to conservation; provides access for physically challenged people and engenders respect and connections between hosts and guest (Goodwin and Francis 2003)

In other words, responsible tourism is about providing better holiday experiences for guests and excellent business opportunities for tourism enterprises It is also about enabling local communities to enjoy a better quality of life through increased socio-economic benefits and improved natural resource management.

Table 1 Socio-economic impacts of tourism on local communities

Stimulate the local economy

Engender social tensions linked to wage and income disparities, between hosts and investors as well as within the community

itself Create opportunities for direct and indirect

employment

Increase pressure on infrastructure and services, especially in cases of mass or

high-density tourism Create opportunities for entrepreneurial

activity

Drive-up land prices and housing/living costs, which can lead to the displacement of residents Stimulate local business growth directly and

indirectly

Create limited, seasonal, unskilled and/or menial employment opportunities that lack

access to training Generate investment in social and economic

infrastructure (e.g., schools, clinics, roads)

Exacerbate gender inequalities as women tend

to perform the most menial employment tasks

and receive the lowest wages

Increase tax revenues

Stimulate inflows of job-seekers (regional immigration) which can increase unemployment and engender social tensions Improve public services and amenities (e.g.,

transport, shopping, entertainment)

Create high regional leakage (the percentage of tourist expenditure that leaves the local

economy)

Improve the quality of police protection

Encourage dominance by multinational companies or local power brokers’ who appropriate all or most of the benefits from

tourism operations

Improve living standards

De-emphasize “traditional” values and practices (e.g., through inflows of tourists,

cash, commodities) Stimulate skills development

Diversify livelihoods

(Source: Spencely et al 2002)

Tourism development generates many issues within the realms of economic, social, cultural, and environmental policy domains Economic sustainability has, in many places, become more important than the others, but the social, cultural, and environmental issues

do not go away Tourism is heavily reliant on cultural, natural, social, and ecological resources and the quality of resources of the destination Tourism does affect and is affected

by the environment (Theobald 2012) Tourism, being a resource-dependent industry, needs

to pay more attention to the concerns of every stakeholder group and deal with them fairly However, as it has already been discussed, each stakeholder group might approach STD from a different perspective and have different goals, which is a challenge for STD When each partner has a different goal for sustainable tourism, consensus-building becomes a challenging process (Lane 1994)

2.2 Tourism Sector in Vietnam

In the past ten years, the Vietnamese tourism industry has achieved high growth rates, with the number of international visitors increasing by an average of nearly 9% per year In 2013, Vietnam tourism welcomed more than 7.5 million international visitors, and served 32.5 million domestic tourists, reaching the total revenue from tourists of 200 trillion VND Domestic tourism also proliferated, contributing to maintaining market stability Vietnam tourism industry has gradually formed its brand and positioned itself in the world market

In 2015, the tourism industry created 1.4 million direct jobs and a significant number

of indirect jobs, contributing to approximately 15% of the national workforce By 2020, it is projected that Vietnam will receive from 10 to 10.5 million international visitor arrivals (7.6% annual increase), and 48 million domestic tourists (5.3% annual increase) The tourism revenues will be expected to increase up to US$18-19 billion (13.8% increase to 2015, 12 annual per cent increase after that)

Following the developing trends, some areas in Vietnam such as Ha Long Bay, the Mekong Delta, have been the fastest-growing world destinations for a few years However, tourism management and safety guarantee for tourists fail to meet the requirements The phenomenon of aggressively seducing tourists in big cities is still prevalent Tourism facilities such as information centres, rest stop points, toilets are still underdeveloped and fail to meet the necessary quality standards Eventually, some places in Vietnam have become the mass tourism destinations where tourists come and have been destroying the natural areas such as beaches, landscapes, cultural heritages which make tourism become under threat (Tan 2014) Furthermore, the increasing inflows of both foreign and inbound tourists also lead to the rise of demand for prostitution and create fertile conditions for the expansion of the sex industry servicing both the local and lately, international markets (Agrusa and Prideaux 2002) This is the negative impact of tourism development on the country

In short, the development of tourism industry in Vietnam has both positive and negative impacts on the society Responsible tourism models then should play their role to

release the negative impacts on economy, society and environment and bring the most benefits for the local communities (Tan 2014)

3 Methodology

3.1 Measurement

The measurement instruments of this study were adopted from the literature on responsible tourism, eco-tourism of (Agrusa and Prideaux 2002), (Argandoña 2010), (Stem, Lassoie et al 2003) The impact of tourism on a destination is measured by four scales, including Economic Impact (6 items), Social Impact (4 items), Cultural Impact (4 items), and Environmental Impact (4 items) For each questionnaire item to measure tourism impact, respondents were asked to show their viewpoint on a five-point Likert scale, from 1 =

“strongly disagree” to 5 = “strongly agree.”

Besides, respondents were also asked two questions, including “Who should be involved in promoting responsible tourism?” and “Which actions should be taken to promote responsible tourism?” A list of nine stakeholders of responsible tourism was developed

For responsible tourism promotion, we use thirty-five actions that classified into four groups corresponding to the actors who are travel agents and tour operators (11 actions), destination marketing organisations (DMOs) (8 actions), related service providers (5 actions), tourists (11 actions) Respondents were asked to express their viewpoint on the necessity of these actions, using the Likert five-point scale (from 1 = totally not necessary to

5 = totally necessary)

3.2 Sampling and Data Collection

The research sample consisted of two groups, including experts in tourism who are working in the industry and tourists The snowball and convenient sampling method were applied An online survey questionnaire was collected on Facebook groups and forums of travellers Moreover, the questionnaire was also sent to some travel agents and university to get the responses from tourism experts After two months, 142 individuals responded to the survey, including 20 tourism experts and 122 tourists The responses were valid and accepted for analysis

4 Results and Discussion

4.1 Sample Characteristics

A self-administered structured questionnaire survey was conducted using a convenience sampling method The age of potential respondents is over 18 years One hundred forty-two questionnaires were returned and thoroughly answered In Table 2, The major respondents were male (71.8%), and the distribution of age is quite even According

to educational level, most of the respondents earned their university degree (66.2%) or higher (24.6% for master's degree and 7.7% for doctor degree) Besides, the majority of respondents have monthly income under 6 million VND, but they travel at least once per 6 months It is also interesting to recognise that over 80% of the respondents were familiar

with the concept of entertainment tourism Only a few of them have ever heard about the emerging types of tourism, such as religious tourism, education tourism, or culinary tourism

Table 3 The demographic profile of respondents (n = 142)

Below 3 million VND 62 43.7 From 3 to 6 million VND 43 30.3 From 6 to 9 million VND 14 9.9

From 9 to 12 million VND 23 16.2

Less than one time per year 30 21.1 Once per 6 months 58 40.8 Once per 3 months 38 26.8

Entertainment tourism 114 80.3

Visiting friends and relatives tourism 8 5.6

No Demographic variable Frequency Percent (%)

(Source: Authors’ survey) 4.2 Measurement Reliability Test

The collected data were processed in SPSS version 20.0 to test the validity and reliability of scale using a Cronbach Alpha analysis As demonstrated in Table 3 below, all constructs have Cronbach’s alpha values higher than the cutoff value of 0.5, reflecting the moderate internal consistency of the measurement scale Only variable X11 was removed from the scale of Cultural Impact because it had the inter-total correlation value lower than the cutoff value of 0.3

Table 4 Reliability of Scales

Code Description of variable Cronbach

Alpha

Number of items before the EFA test

Number of items after the EFA test

A Actions of travel agents and tour

C Actions of related services providers 0.872 5 5

(Source: Authors’ survey)

4.3 Viewpoints on Impacts of Tourism

Respondents were asked about the impacts of tourism on a destination regarding four aspects (i.e., economic, social, cultural, and environmental) Table 5 showed the mean value of each item from the viewpoints of the expert group and tourist group

Table 5 Impact of Tourism on the Destination

Mean value Expert

(n1 = 20)

Tourist (n2 = 122) Economic Impact (ECI)

No Statement

Mean value Expert

(n1 = 20)

Tourist (n2 = 122) X1 Create employment opportunities for local people 4.30 4.48

X2 Earn revenue from tourists for local businesses and

X3 Raise the living standard at the destination 4.10 4.07 X4 Lead to the dependence on a particular industry* 3.25 3.00 X5 Raise real estate price and living cost* 3.85 3.89 X6 Generate seasonal labours with low skills* 3.40 3.32

Social Impact (SI) X7 Diversify the creational activities at the destination 4.00 4.14 X8 Contribute to the maintenance of roads and other

X9 Create more opportunities for local people to join some

X10 Increase the opportunities to commercialise traditional

Cultural Impact (CI) X12 Bring valuable experiences for local people when

exchanging cultures with tourists 3.90 3.84 X13 Indirectly lead to social crimes that negatively affect the

local culture (prostitution, theft)* 3.50 3.42 X14 De-emphasize traditional culture values due to the control

Environmental Impact (ENI)

X15 Disorder the life of nature animals because of tours and

curious tourists in national parks 3.55 3.68 X16 Release a considerable volume of rubbish in the local

X17 Damage the ecosystem of the destination 3.65 3.60 X18 Destroy the nature of the destination 3.50 3.39

(Source: Authors’ survey)

As shown in Table 4, the expert group and the tourist group share similar viewpoints

on most of the questioned items The mean values of items are not very different when we compare the results calculated based on the responses of experts and tourists

Among the six items of Economic Impact factor (EcI), “Create employment opportunities for local people” (X1) was rated the highest both by the experts (4.30) and the tourists (4.48) Meanwhile, the lowest-rated item is “Lead to the dependence on a certain industry” (X4) with the mean value of 3.25 and 3.00 for the expert group and tourist group, respectively Regarding the Social Impact factor (SI), “Increase the opportunities to

commercialise traditional products” was considered to be the most important by both expert and tourist groups In the scale of Cultural Impact (CI), the issue of cultural exchange between local people and tourists are considered the most important item with mean values are 3.90 and 3.84 for the expert group and tourist group, respectively Besides, among four items of the Environment Impact (EnI) scale, experts and tourists agreed that the valuable experiences for local people when exchanging cultures with tourists was the essential item

Finally, the issue of rubbish in the local destination is considered the most influential

on the destination This negative factor should be recognised and addressed by multiple stakeholders at the destination

4.4 Stakeholders to Promote Responsible Tourism

In this study, we identify that many stakeholders are involved in promoting responsible tourism in Vietnam Respondents were asked to choose who should be involved

in responsible tourism The results showed that tourists are considered to be the most crucial stakeholder to promote responsible tourism (88.1%), followed by DMOs (83.9%) and tour operators (79%) It is also noteworthy that most stakeholders in the list, excluding transportation services, are considered to be valuable by more than half of the respondents

Figure 1 Stakeholders to Promote Responsible Tourism (Source: Authors’ survey)

4.5 Possible Actions to Promote Responsible Tourism in Vietnam

In order to identify the possible actions to promote responsible tourism in Vietnam, the survey included one part in asking the experts and tourists how they evaluate the necessity of various actions

Regarding the possible actions taken by the travel agents and tour operators, the expert group and the tourist group share their similar viewpoints For all actions (A1 to A11), the mean value rated by two groups were almost the same It is also noteworthy that all mean values were higher than 3.5 points, but none was higher than 4.7 points In other

88.10% 83.90%

79%

65.70%

54.50%

53.80%

51.70%

50.30%

40.60%

Tourists DMOs Tour operators Accomodation and food providers

Tour agents International tourism organizations

Government agencies

Education institutions

Transportation services

Percent