Tourism in Vietnam has contributed to eliminating hunger and alleviating poverty, improving the living standards and enriching the society. The development of tourism has helped to change the face of urban and rural areas. People’s living standards have been much improved, especially in tourist areas such as Sapa, Halong Bay, Cat Ba Island, Sam Son beach, Cua Lo beach, the ancient city of Hue, and provinces of Quang Nam, Khanh Hoa, Binh Thuan and Ba Ria.
Economical Impacts
Vietnam's tourist arrivals has been on a rise over the years ever since Vietnam has opened its door to foreigners around a decade ago. As shown in the statistic, the primary purpose of visitors coming to Vietnam is for tourism. This will definitely increase the tourism receipts spent by the visitors, especially now with its many attractive tourist attractions, like Cu Chi tunnels, Haylong Bay putting them first on the travel itineraries. With more tourist income, this will definitely boost the economy and improve the economic status of Vietnam. One of the key factors why Vietnam has recently dropped out of the world's poorest countries' list is due to the positive economic benefits of tourism.
Although the tourism industry in Vietnam is still developing, it plays a key economic role in the country. Tourism attracts foreign investment and creates jobs. According to the Footprint Vietnam Travel Web Site, it states that tourism activities have created jobs for more than 234,000 direct employees and about 510,000 indirect employees.
It also provides investment opportunities for small business owners and thus shifting the Vietnamese workforce from agriculture to the services industry created by tourism growth. This also means that Vietnamese will now have higher disposable incomes and therefore reduced poverty in the country itself.
Tourism in Vietnam benefits the hotel, construction and retail sectors as well as other service-oriented industries. A service-based sector requires higher education levels than an agricultural sector, because tourism sector jobs which include receptionists, clerks and tour guides, must interact with the public and keep accurate business documents. Through this, it will also avoid revenues to leak out of Vietnam and thus directs the most money to local economies.
Environmental Impacts
While nature-based tourism provides substantial incentive for environmental preservation, numerous negative environmental impacts result from the unmanaged arrival of visitors in an area. Without proper infrastructure, litter and other types of pollution worsen. Restaurants opened to accommodate tourists have no way to dispose of waste properly, and resorts and hotels are known to release untreated sewage into waterways. If visitors are not educated about beneficial environmental practices, they can cause habitat degradation and loss of biodiversity. Freshwater shortages are also common in areas with increased tourism and minimal management practices.
The tourism industry has created capability of consuming goods and services, boosting other industries to develop, restoring many traditional festivals and craft villages, boosting economic restructuring of the whole country and each locality, expanding exchange among regions and with foreign countries, and ensuring security, national defence and social order.
Cultural Impacts
As much as tourism has made changes to the people and society, the culture of Vietnam has been affected too. With tourism, many parts of the Vietnamese cultures have been preserved and tangibilized so as to showcase the specialty and uniqueness of its culture to the foreigners. At the same time, the new generations of the locals will have grown more interest in preserving and learning more about their roots. It also helps to build mutual understanding between Vietnam and other countries, especially war rivals as they can release social tension between ex war countries, and understand each other's suffering and past so that history will not repeat itself. It also helps the different countries to be more tolerant and acceptable towards cultural differences.
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