Promoting sustainable tourism development in central provinces

In his speech at the workshop, ISSCR Director, Assoc. Prof. Dr. Bui Duc Hung said since 2001, the central provinces have achieved many positive results in developing tourism, becoming one of the key areas for tourism development in Vietnam.

However, the achieved results still contains many risk factors, threatening the possibility of long-term development, he noted.

According to Do Thu Trang, a representative from the Development Strategy Institute under the Ministry of Planning and Investment, despite being integrated into the overall socio-economic development orientation in many localities, due to lack of consensus, tourism in the region faces the risk of unsustainable development.

In order to overcome weaknesses due to policy development and tourism management, she proposed that local authorities should establish a coordinating body for the whole region, building mechanisms for coordination in information exchange and work closely together to develop tourism for the whole region.

Many delegates at the workshop also proposed a closer coordination among the State, enterprises and local people and increase the monitoring of the community in tourism development in association with natural resources preservation.

Some delegates suggested that sustainable tourism should be built on the basis of what the community has, not on what the community needs, thus maximising local resources.

They also stressed the need to enhance the participation of the community in creating and protecting the cultural values of each locality for the sustainable development of tourism.