1. Regarding mechanisms and policies
In order to develop community-based tourism, it must first have the attention of sectors and levels from the central to local levels, must be institutionalized, concretized into legal documents and must be completed in accordance with the law. actual situation. It is necessary to have appropriate socio-economic development policies, in which tourism is defined as an integrated economic sector with deeply ingrained content, interdisciplinary, inter-regional and highly socialized. contribute to socio-economic growth and contribute to poverty reduction and ensure social security.
Through studying community-based tourism models of some countries in the region and in localities in the country, it can be seen that it is necessary to have mechanisms and policies to create opportunities for people to provide tourism goods and services. calendar. The guidelines and policies here are to guide people on what products to produce and how to produce to suit the advantages of each locality to meet the needs of tourists.
It is necessary to have policies to encourage tourism businesses and travel businesses to consume products made by local people. Doing this means helping people increase their incomes, have stable jobs and create a sense of preserving their ethnic traditions. It is tourism’s contribution to poverty alleviation in the locality of tourism development.
2. Distribution of benefits from local tourism activities
Communities must share in the benefits of tourism development. According to this principle, the community must benefit together as other components involved in the business activities of providing products for tourists, the revenue from tourism activities is divided equally among all participating members. At the same time, those benefits are also deducted to develop common benefits for society such as reinvesting in the community in building roads, bridges, electricity and healthcare and education.
In addition, tourism activities cause conflicts between the parties involved if the benefits are not distributed fairly. Therefore, in order to sustainably exploit the values of the community, it is necessary to carry out responsible tourism. In the current context, responsible tourism development must share benefits, ensuring equal participation of all parties. For tourists, how to change their perception and take practical actions at the destination. Many businesses have supported indigenous people, supported the environment, and treated waste. As for tourists, if they don’t have much time, they can buy local products; hire local tour guides; Eat and stay at local restaurants.
Community-based tourism development brings benefits to local people. In particular, the local community participates in community tourism as both an organizer, a beneficiary, and proactively providing services such as motels, transportation, catering services, etc. catering services, selling souvenirs, supporting tourists… Along with tourists, people are beneficiaries of tangible and intangible benefits of this activity. Tourism development must be socially responsible. In order to develop the local economy, respecting indigenous values and community values, responsible tourism will be the solution to develop community-based tourism in the right direction and sustainably. After all, people must benefit from tourism development, developing community-based tourism means ensuring fairness in sharing tourism income for the community between the parties involved.
3. Select the type of tourism product
Each locality needs to develop a plan to choose the type of product to guide the development of community tourism. To do that, it is necessary to have specific research in many fields such as local residents’ life, culture, typical cuisine, customs, living habits, etc. to orient core values. of the community, preserving and developing cultural space to nurture, preserve and promote those values. To overcome the limitations of resources and infrastructure, especially in remote areas, it is necessary to study and choose a tourism model that requires few resources but promotes the advantages of natural landscapes and natural resources. humanities, indigenous cultural nuances of ethnic communities. In this case, to develop tourism in association with poverty alleviation in service of socio-economic development, choosing a community-based tourism development model plays an important role.
Community-based tourism is a development model according to the point of view, the development philosophy of sustainable tourism through ecotourism in a broad sense. In this model, the residential community is the main provider of products and services for tourists, they play a key role in developing and maintaining the services. Areas and points for organizing community tourism development are those areas with intact wild resources that are being damaged by impacts and need to be preserved. The residential community is the person who has the direct responsibility to participate in the protection of tourism resources and the environment in order to limit and minimize the impact of tourists and the community’s own exploitation. Community-based includes elements that empower the community, the community is involved in promoting and undertaking tourism activities and conserving environmental resources.
4. Involvement of the residential community
Communities participate in tourism development plans from the outset. To ensure sustainable development, the community element is involved in the discussion from the very beginning on guidelines and plans, as well as in the process of implementing and implementing plans and programs. Discussion issues need to be public, democratic, especially the mechanism of sharing benefits to ensure fairness, service providers must be witnesses to distribute benefits to the parties. join.
Increasing power for the community is to exercise the right to control and manage natural resources, the community is assigned the responsibility to supervise issues related to tourism development from undertakings, implementing plans, from investment in construction of infrastructure and public works to the protection and conservation of natural resources. Increasing power includes increasing the control and accessibility of the community on issues related to tourism development and environmental protection. Empowering communities includes building human resources for communities that are qualified and capable of implementing, accessing, as well as having sufficient expertise in monitoring development issues. tourism. The power of the community here is expressed on the basis of the law and permission of the community for everything from participating in the development plan to the organization, management, implementation and supervision to achieve the goal. sustainable development in terms of socio-economic, natural resources and environment.
Ensure the rationality of the community’s participation. The rationality here is not only to consider how to suit the needs of socio-economic and cultural development in the locality to conduct tourism development, but also to consider environmental issues, ecosystems (both natural and natural). natural and humanistic).
5. Involvement of parties in community tourism development
– Local specialized management agencies with functions and tasks to constantly improve the management, guide and organize the implementation in order to coordinate and exploit well the local tourist attractions, preserve the natural Ethnic cultural identity attracts tourists, contributing to socio-economic construction in the locality. The local authorities help guide the villages to organize the work of welcoming and dealing with guests; preserving and promoting national cultural identity such as house architecture, costumes; preserve and protect the hygienic environment; ensure security and order for tourists, research and collect advanced national cultural traditions to serve tourists. In addition, local authorities need to have policy incentives to attract travel companies to exploit and link tours, and at the same time, diversify types of services such as: forms of participation in some stages of agricultural production/cultivation; visit the landscape, people, culture and lifestyle of the people… to help visitors experience the daily life of the indigenous people and discover the unique features of the culture, customs and way of life here. .
– For travel companies, it is necessary to participate in the construction of tours, routes, travel programs, build publications to promote propaganda, participate in supporting local people to improve their facilities and technical services to serve customers. . Building tourism products with unique elements that will motivate tourists to come to satisfy their needs, avoid boredom such as organizing festivals in villages, recreating folk games, building build traditional craft villages, organize folk music performances and campfires…
– Focusing on training for people doing tourism through professional training and retraining activities. In fact, in tourist villages, the workforce is almost untrained, mainly doing business spontaneously, learning from each other’s experiences, having little knowledge in the profession, afraid of collisions, mainly heat. love and hospitality. Therefore, to make tourism activities in the villages successful, it is necessary to invest in people, which is a strategic investment. Đào tạo từ những người làm công tác quản lý tại các tuyến điểm và những cư dân tham gia hoạt động kinh doanh du lịch để áp dụng một cách khoa học, linh hoạt, sáng tạo công nghệ đón tiếp và phục vụ khách du lịch.
– Local authorities at all levels and branches should focus on investing in infrastructure for the tourist village, supporting the construction of material and technical foundations for the people, but must ensure elements of preserving the landscape, environment, customs and traditions. cultural traditions. Investing in the development of a community-based tourism model must pay attention to the preservation and promotion of indigenous cultural and historical values, avoiding the hybridization and metamorphosis of the core values of the cultural and spatial space. residential community located in the project area; ensure security, order and social safety; environmental sanitation; especially the resident community where tourism develops must benefit from the development of community tourism. Strengthen propaganda, promote and widely introduce the type of community-based tourism to tourists near and far, especially international visitors on the mass media.
6. Some recommendations for local reference to develop community-based tourism to contribute to poverty reduction in a sustainable way.
6.1. Focus on promoting the propaganda and promotion of community tourism in a professional way: The promotion of community-based tourism should be identified as an important content of all levels, sectors, socio-political systems, businesses and people in each locality. Contents of propaganda and promotion give priority to introduce local people, tourism potentials and advantages and necessary information related to community tourism. Forms of propaganda also need to be diverse and rich, on the internet, announcements, press conferences, mass media, brochures, leaflets… In community tourism, the need for tourists to shop for souvenirs Tourism needs attention. Customers who can afford to pay more and more want to have good quality products imbued with indigenous culture to buy as souvenirs and gifts for relatives.
6.2. Focus on completing the master plans for tourism development and detailed planning for tourist attractions, each tourist area and tourist infrastructure: On that basis, attracting economic sectors and businesses to participate in community tourism. Investing in construction of tourist facilities such as places to eat, rest, travel, entertainment, shopping…
6.3. Restoration and embellishment of cultural and historical relics and festivals in accordance with the orientation of conservation and development of tourism resources: It is necessary to identify the stable and volatile factors in the preservation and development of indigenous cultural values. When organizing community tourism in each locality in the province, it is necessary to correctly determine what is the traditional, unique and irreplaceable thing; What are the things that need to be adjusted to meet the needs and tastes of society while still preserving the culture and traditional values of the locality. Funding to do these things is not only from the investment capital of the central government and the tourism industry, but also gradually increases the contribution of businesses and related organizations and individuals.
6.4. Organize upgrading and expanding community tourism activities in the direction of natural attraction but with high professionalism: Must create closeness to the community and meet the needs of community tourists. Create the unique cultural features of each community-based tourism activity in each place, so that from these uniquenesses, it can be attractive to the media and people as well as tourists.
6.5. Strengthen and improve the effectiveness of state management of tourism in the area through propaganda, guidance, inspection and implementation of the provisions of the law.: After each tourist season, each time to welcome guests, it is necessary to have a meeting to point out the advantages, limitations and causes to adjust and shape the organization for a more suitable and better organization next time. Reward and reward clearly, but it is necessary to resolutely sanction the arising social evils to set an example. The local State Administration of Tourism, the Community Tourism Management Board (of the village, of the village) also need to regularly exchange and learn from other localities’ experiences in organizing professional festivals. , focusing on training and fostering relevant human resources.
6.6. Promote the participation of businesses: Measures should be taken to guide, encourage, invest, upgrade and modernize material and technical facilities such as accommodation facilities, means of transport, sales, etc. to open more services and improve high quality service to serve tourists. Early information on the plan to organize tourism activities and events to orient and attract tourism businesses to build products and connect to expand the guest market, have a suitable business strategy and closely connect them. with the Provincial plan. Businesses also need to pay more attention to training and fostering human resources, especially guides and narrators at tourist attractions, both in terms of knowledge, skills, spirit, service attitude and core human way.
6.7. Mobilize local communities in the conservation and promotion of cultural heritage and tourism-related values: It is necessary to put the people here, taking the community as the center of all activities, especially the conservation and development of culture, cultural heritage, historical relics and important values.
When it comes to communities in terms of organizing tourism and creating tourism supply, it is necessary to exploit the economic, geographical, linguistic, cultural, belief and lifestyle aspects… of each community in Vietnam. tourist attractions. Developing community-based tourism in a market economy means having to buy and sell, but it does not mean commercializing the cultural value and unique identity of a community to trade tourism products by any price.
People need to be educated, raise the right and sufficient awareness about community-based tourism, understand that community-based tourism will create jobs, increase incomes and create internal resources to conserve and develop natural resources. local tourism. People need to be aware of this issue and understand the limitations that still exist in the development of community-based tourism that can be factors that hurt the honor, pride of local traditions, resources and their own jobs.
For a long time, the development of community-based tourism has only been understood more in terms of the community’s participation in activities to create tourism supply, not paying attention to the community from the perspective of tourism demand. When organizing community-based tourism from the perspective of tourism demand, attention must be paid to the community of the customer group with the common signs and characteristics of the source of visitors (psychological characteristics, customs and practices of the country). their family, ethnicity); At the same time, it is impossible to ignore the characteristics related to class composition, occupation, place of residence and residence… Studying well the characteristics of the tourist source according to the community structure, dividing the market (tourism demand) into appropriate segments, will have a stronger basis to build and develop suitable tourism products and “community” in the development of community tourism.
Nowadays, when traveling, everyone wants to participate in events taking place in tourist destinations, to be experienced in a positive sense. Therefore, when organizing community tours, it is necessary to exploit this aspect, creating conditions for guests to participate in activities of the resident community where the tourist is visiting; creating for guests to be integrated with the rhythm of life, the lifestyle of the local people. Not only businesses have to do this, but state agencies, local authorities and especially the residential community where tourists come to travel must also be proactive for visitors to integrate with the community. Only by proactively doing these things can we attract more tourists to visit, and we can avoid the negative and bad effects that may occur when tourists from all over the world integrate into the lives of tourists. Indigenous Peoples. This is a sustainable way to develop community-based tourism to contribute positively to poverty alleviation in the locality.
7. Instead of the ending
Although the development of community-based tourism products is in line with the trend and the number of tourists looking to these tourism products is increasing, in fact, community-based tourism in Vietnam is still spontaneous. has not been organized methodically and has not been put into practice. The new form of activity only has the meaning of sightseeing, not achieving the purpose of raising awareness, educating the environment and feeling the unique cultural features of the indigenous community. Some localities pay too much attention to the economic development factor, so the organization is still fragmented, snatched, and switched too quickly to tourism services, without paying attention to the issue of sustaining this activity. Therefore, in order for community-based tourism to develop, the most important thing is that the community of each locality must be deeply aware of the unique values of their culture and locality, thereby conveying to visitors the values of their culture. this with love, respect and trust. In parallel with removing obstacles that are limiting community tourism, scientists need to coordinate research and guide indigenous people to build attractive, non-duplicating products, ensuring the preservation of landscape, environment, avoid snatching, gradually destroy unique cultural features. In order to limit the current spontaneous development of community-based tourism, it is necessary to have a specific and clear plan and strengthen the state management function. However, it should be noted that state management is not about managing or tightening, but must guide and create conditions for people to properly and effectively do this form of tourism…
The problem is that there should be specific mechanisms and policies from the state to arouse the people’s energy, to make community-based tourism become a sustainable development direction of Vietnam’s tourism. According to experts, the development of community-based tourism is in line with the trend of the times, meeting the discovery needs of a large number of tourists who want to learn about the unique ethnic culture. However, in order to develop community-based tourism, it is necessary to keep the original, pristine and genuine simplicity of the indigenous culture, which is the core value of the community, not to lose it. Developing community-based tourism must be socially responsible to the community itself. In order to develop the local economy, respecting indigenous values and community values, responsible tourism will be the solution to develop community-based tourism in the right direction and sustainably. Only when people really benefit from the local tourism development, can community-based tourism develop sustainably, making a positive contribution to poverty alleviation.
