Present and future ecotourism development in the mekong delta

HO CHI MINH CITY UNIVERSITY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES - INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY SCHOOL OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES PRESENT AND FUTURE ECOTOlJRISM DEVEWPMENT IN THE MEKONG DELTA Instructor: Mr Le Hoang Anh Student : Nguy~n TrQng NghIa, Class: LA9602 TV Dqi Hf?C Huflit 1111111111111111111111111111 1010004317 HCMC, July 2000 HO CHI MINH CITY UNIVERSITY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES - INFORMA nON TECHNOLOGY SCHOOL OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES ug.:.ro PRESENT AND FUTURE ECOTOURISM DEVEWPMENT IN THE MEKONG DELTA HCMC, July 2000 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT In completing encouragement, this research paper, I have received invaluable advice and help from teachers, experts, and friends First of all, I would like to thank my instructor, Mr Le Hoang Anh, for commending and providing materials and for giving me ideas and advices in widening my knowledge of this issue and completing this paper I am also grateful to the teachers of Foreign Language Department for encouraging and providing me useful comments and advice I would like to take this opportunity to thank the following people and organizations for their helps and supports: Ho Chi Minh Communist Youth Union in HUFLlT, Tourist Branch Offices of Can Tho, Tien Giang, Vinh Long and Ben Tre Provinces Last but not least, I also wish to express my great appreciation friends' supports and encouragement to my ABSTRACT In recent years, ecotourism industry has brought great benefits to developing countries, Vietnam is not excluded Number visitors to natural areas increases more and more Unfortunately, culture, landscapes the industry has also caused many serious consequences etc Therefore, it is very essential to examine to nature, the theories and practices of ecotourism fdevelopment The first part of this paper aims at providing theories data, information derived from literature and practiced activities of ecotourism in some countries and in Vietnam The study also analyzes some remarkable A collection of information factors that effect the industry development from printed materials brings a further understanding both in Vietnamese of such aspects as its importance, and English roles, principles, functions toward environment, culture, economy and so on The second part introduces the potentials for ecotourism alluvial soil and fresh water of the Mekong Delta development The potentials in the comprise tourist attractions in the studied area, those in vicinity regions and in neighboring countries Thirdly, the paper observes present ways of ecotourism exploitation in the area It emphasizes positive results that the regional tourist industry has achieved On the other side, this part pays especial attention to the weak points of management, natural and cultural preservation In recommendations, to effectively the part presents some suggestions and opinions which try exploit the available potential and to partly work out those weak points that the tourism industry are facing with THE TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENT ABSTRACT INTRODUCTION CHAPTER ONE: ECOTOURISM - LITERATURE REVIEW Pages 1- 21 1.1 Definition of ecotourism 1.2 The 'green' in ecotourism development : 1.3 Principles of sustainable ecotourism development 1.4 The impacts of ecotourism 1.4.1 1.4.2 Positive impacts 11 1.4.1.1 Benefits to the local 11 1.4.1.2 Benefits to the environment 15 1.4.1.3 Benefits to the culture 16 1.4.1.4 Benefits to tourism enterprises and other economic industries 16 Negative impacts 18 1.4.2.1 On natural environment 18 1.4.2.2 On cultural environment 20 CHAPTER TWO: ECOTOURISM POTENTIALS IN THE REGION 2.1 Pages 22 - 44 Advantages for developing ecotourism 24 2.1 En vironmenta1 advantages 24 2.1.2 Geographic advantages 27 1.2 Re1ations with vicinity provinces 27 2.1.2.2 Re1ations with vicinity countries 29 2.1.3 2.2 11 Humanistic advantages 31 2.1.3.1 Di versified culture 31 2.1.3.2 "Rural civilization" 36 Typical tourist attractions 37 2.2.1 37 Natural tourist spots '" 2.2.2 Cultural tOUl;st spots 39 2.2.3 Historical tourist spots 42 CHAPTER THREE: THE PRESENT ECOTOURISM EXPLOITATION Pages 45 - 57 3.1 The positive ways of exploitation 46 3.2 Weaknesses / obstacles 3.2.1 Environmental problems 3.2.2 Cultural problems 48 3.2.3 Tour operation problems 50 3.2.3.1 Simple tours and lack of entertainment 50 3.2.3.2 Overlapped tours 51 3.2.4 Awareness of the community 54 3.2.5 Issues on tourist staff and services 55 3.2.6 Advertisement 56 issues CHAPTER FOUR: RECOMMENDATIONS 4.1 47 Pages 58 - 68 Developing ecotourism potentials 59 1.1 Environment preservation 59 4.1.2 Unique traditional cultural preservation 60 4.2 Improving capaci ty of tourist servers 62 4.3 Extending internal co-operations 62 4.3.1 Co-operations from local residents 62 4.3.2 Co-operations from other parties 63 4.4 Expanding external co-operations 64 4.4.1 From other regions 64 4.4.2 From other countries 65 4.5 Planning tourist destinations 65 4.6 Establishing 'Tourist Association of The Mekong Delta' 66 CON CLUSI ON REFERENCES 69 Pages 70 - 73 INTRODUCTION The Vietnam National Administration and cultural tourism the key prospects Vietnamese of Tourism has pledged that ecotourism in the long- term development tourism industry Ecotourism has been a very successful plan of the kind of tour generating great benefits in modern time Vietnam with diversified ecology will surely become an attractive Organisation destination for ecotourism (WTO) has forecasted in the near future World Tourism that travelling on Mekong River area, especially around the Mekong Delta in Vietnam, will become one of the ten famous tourist destinations in the World in coming years (Phan Anh, 1998) Due to the special features of ecotourism potentials, the Mekong Delta of Vietnam has plenty of conditions to develop ecotourism But what it has achieved is not correlated to its great potentials More over, how to preserve the ecotomist environment is still a controversial problem Therefore, and to observe generated the purpose of this study is to evaluate to the ecotourism potentials the present exploitation of the resources by this kind of travel will be carefully contribute to the national travel development analysed In addition, the benefits The study is aimed to in the contest of ecotourism, especially in Mekong Delta, and to preserve country's environment and natural resources This paper examines some typical existing tours to recommend be used to serve for researching, improvements Besides, it would studying in ecotourism field According to the natural and cultural features, the Mekong Delta can be divided into four ecotourist areas with different features The paper focuses on one of the four areas, which covers the upper part of the Delta stretching along Tien River and Hau River with area about one million hectares In other words, the region is named, as region of alluvial soil and fresh water It consists of some districts of the provinces, including An Giang, Dong Thap, Can Tho, Vinh Long and Tien Giang CHAPTER ONE , 1- ~C()T()U[?IS,"- LIT~[?ATU[?~ [?~VI~W 1.1 Definition of Ecotourism Ecotourism is one of the fasted groWIng trends in the world- wide tourism industry The term 'ecotourism' has been defined in many ways, and is generally used to describe tourism activities which are conducted in harmony with nature, as opposed to more traditional than 'mass' tourism activities It will be best if a sufficient one is worked out That can be the most basic guidelines for development of this business The following are some definitions of previous researchers /' /' e (c;' t/1 U