THE IMPACTS OF TOURISM ON
ETHNIC MINORITY INHABITANTS OF
SA PA DISTRICT, LAO CAI:

Their Participation and Attitudes toward Tourism

Dr. Ph¹m ThÞ Méng Hoa

Dr. L¢m ThÞ Mai Lan

Human Geography Research Centre —
National Centre for Social Sciences and Humanities
(HGRC — NCSSH)

In collaboration with

Annalisa Koeman

IUCN Vietnam
(The World Conservation Union)

Ha Noi, February 1999

TABLE OF CONTENTS

FOREWORD

The research contains four focus areas:

1. four selected communes in the district of Sa Pa;
2. ethnic minority sellers in Sa Pa Market and ethnic minority "street children" in the town of Sa Pa;
3. Kinh business individuals in the town of Sa Pa and
4. domestic and international tourists.

The preliminary or final research findings will be an important part of an IUCN and International NGO initiative — a community tourism planning workshop to discuss sustainable tourism development and a sustainable tourism action strategy for Sa Pa, as specifically indicated in the terms of reference for this research project.

The opinions expressed in this report are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of IUCN Vietnam or the Sustainable Tourism Project.

INTRODUCTION

Tourism is an economic sector which "depends for its very existence on quality natural environments as much as it equally does on the specific culture and society of the local inhabitants". Vietnam is a country in a process of socio-economic transformation with a young tourism industry. Though Vietnam’s young tourism industry is full of potential and promise, there exists an urgent need to address a number of negative aspects, for the development of the industry in particular and the social and economic development of Vietnam in general. The protection and preservation of socio-cultural potentials and tourism’s impacts on local communities and cultural resources needs to be paid due attention, just as the natural potential of tourism and its impacts on the conservation of nature already are being addressed. However, issues such as protecting the unique traditional cultural heritage of ethnic minority communities are still very new in Vietnam.

The goals of the two-year IUCN project entitled "Capacity-Building for Sustainable Tourism Initiatives" (1997-1999) have shown some objectives:

• to identify and raise awareness about the negative socio-economic, cultural and ecological impacts of tourism;
• to contribute to the development of sustainable community-based models of tourism which can generate sustainable income for some of the country’s poorest and most disadvantaged communities;
• and at the same time to help maintain Vietnam’s cultural and biological diversity.

One of the main issues which prompted the formation of this project was the increasing concern of many NGOs for the rapid change associated with tourism and the potential negative consequences of tourism on the ethnic minority communities of Sa Pa.

Some recent research conducted by Western researchers/scientists has shown that tourism can have a strong impact on ethnic minority communities, in particular the study of Michael DiGregorio, et al., entitled " The Growth and Impacts of Tourism in Sa Pa," (1996), and "Preliminary Study of Tourism in and around Sa Pa, Lµo Cai province" by Mark E. Grindley of Frontier-Vietnam (1997).

In the mentioned study, Michael DiGregorio concludes that tourism damages ethnic minority communities more than it benefits them. He argues that ethnic minority people are at the lowest end of the market chain, providing their own natural resources to tourism, and will likely suffer the greatest losses. In other words, they are the ones who directly gather forest resources and supply them to tourists through intermediaries such as restaurants, guesthouses, or shops of Kinh business townspeople in Sa Pa and that as a result they also are the first impacted if the environment is abused or if forest products become exhausted. Their direct participation in tourism activities such as the performance of traditional, cultural arts, and folklore, or permission for tourists to enter their villages, houses, or to stay overnight in their homes is not beneficial for them, says DiGregorio. Based on this, he assumes that as tourism comprises a larger share of the local economy, social equality issues (as displayed in labour division as well as in benefit distributions between ethnic minority communities and Kinh people) are likely to become increasingly more important.

He proposes that a regulation mechanism to recalculate the benefits of tourism back into some long-term socio-economic and environmental improvement is needed, that minority people can retain rights over individual and community participation in the tourism economy and have more control over the access to their villages, ceremonies and home life. DiGregorio asserts that the commercialisation of some cultural elements of ethnic minority communities are inevitable along with the development of cultural tourism and that this can make the area less attractive to tourists, especially independent, adventurous, young foreign tourists who make up the majority of foreign tourists of Sa Pa. In their place less adventurous, wealthier foreign tourists, and domestic tourists will come and they will all be less interested in the culture of ethnic minority communities. He also predicts a tendency that Sa Pa will develop into an attractive and exotic entertainment resort.

Mark E. Grindley has sounded the alarm on what he calls the likely irreversible negative impacts of tourism, despite their current invisibility. He determines that tourism so far has not brought benefits to minority people, the communities who put the most strain on forest resources — which, according to him, "are inherently easier to manage, and more robust. Grindley has proposed that some measures are needed to manage Sa Pa’s tourism so that it may bring more benefits for minorities, and by this, reduce pressures on the forest resources. He also proposes that there needs to be better organised tours from Sa Pa so that tourists stay in Sa Pa for longer periods of time. His conclusion is that tours must be developed focusing more on scenic beauty, the nature reserves, mountain climbing, etc.

The study of Dr. Trish Nicholson (October 1997) also shared the opinion that Sa Pa tourism at present brings little benefit to minority people. She particularly noticed that the time and skill required to produce embroidery and clothes is not compensated by cash values normally attached to a souvenir market, which further creates more of a burden on hard working minority women.

The recent research of Dr. Jean Michaud, conducted in May 1998, gives a brighter picture of the participation of ethnic minority communities in the tourism economy of Sa Pa, despite that he also supposes it is difficult for them to compete with Kinh "outsiders" and to keep control over their businesses. He asserts that they can only be small-scale traders and owners of inexpensive guesthouses. Further, according to his observations the current social practices of minorities seem not to suffer from tourism activities. He concludes that the concern over "the potential of immoral sexual intercourse with foreigners and the avoidance of compulsory schooling for street children" is largely unfounded.

The number of findings, opinions or views, common or distinguishing, regarding impacts of tourism on ethnic minority communities show the need to clarify the degree of impacts, including both positive and negative, on minorities. Particularly, it needs to identify their perceptions and attitudes toward tourism impacts. We hope backgrounds and goals set by IUCN in this project can contribute to the planned Community Tourism Planning Workshop, aimed at assembling people from broad sectors in the community to discuss tourism issues and outline a basic framework for a Sustainable Tourism Action Strategy (STAS).

Project statement:

Addressing these issues, IUCN in particular, and NGOs in general, wish to contribute to the sustainable tourism industry in Sa Pa, based on community participation. Community participation means that it must be based on the perceptions, attitudes and willingness of the local people toward tourism and their involvement in the sector. Tourism development planning must rely on the participation of the local people, especially ethnic minority communities, who make up the majority of the district population.

I. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

II. SOCIO-ECONOMIC PROFILE OF DISTRICT OF SA PA

During the remaining months of the year, they have to rely on forest products such as the trade of wood, forest foods such as mushrooms and young bamboo sprouts, game meat, medicinal herbs, and for tourism — ornamental plants, orchids, or honey. As a result, the availability of these resources is being reduced and the forest is degrading rapidly along with an increase of demand from the outside and a natural population growth inside the district. At present, the Government has banned the collection of forest wood, particularly due to exhaustion of forest products, and has further banned the planting and trading of opium. As a result, the standard of living for the ethnic minority communities of Sa Pa, especially the H’mong, has been low.

The Government and local authorities have tried many measures to help the local population find ways to substitute opium and wood income, to stabilise and sedentarise their cultivation practices, to fight food shortages, and to upgrade income levels, especially those of the ethnic minority communities. Many investment projects of the State Sedentarisation programme, forest development programmes, agricultural extension programmes and NGO programmes, both domestic, and mainly international, were or are being carried out in many communes of the district.

In particular, out of 110 HHs surveyed, there were 86 HHs (making up 78.2%) who said that sales and trade were an important source of income during food shortages. However, according to the report of the local communes’ authorities, on average, there were 40 — 60% of poor HHs who suffer from food shortages, of which the H’mong are grouped as having the highest poverty ratio. Thus, in helping the local ethnic minority communities of Sa Pa, the need for the creation of new opportunities for employment and new sources of income generation is very important and acute. Contributions need to be made toward poverty alleviation and the protection and rehabilitation of local forest resources. In this context, the development of tourism in Sa Pa in upcoming years should be of particular significance to both local and international communities.

III. SA PA TOURISM POTENTIAL

Located at an altitude of 1,500-1,600 m, Sa Pa has a natural landscape and climate that has always been historically very attractive to tourists. At the beginning of the twentieth century, during colonisation, the French discovered the area’s great resort potential. More than 200 villas were built for summer holidays, away from the heat of the Delta. After liberation from French rule, Sa Pa became a resort for high-ranking officials of the Vietnam Communist Party and Government. In 1979, during the Vietnam-China border conflict, Chinese troops destroyed almost all of the villas of Sa Pa, leaving only about ten intact. During the years 1992-1993, just after the construction of a number of State guesthouses, which mostly hosted Government staff, and the return of French visitors (both researchers and tourists), Sa Pa once again became an attractive tourist destination.

The number of tourists coming to Sa Pa has been rising steadily. According to the Department of Trade and Service, from 1995-1997, the number of both domestic and foreign tourists coming to Sa Pa was increased nearly by half (from 15,800 to 30,800), with the number of foreign tourists in particular more than doubling (from 4,000 to 9,000).

Sa Pa has enormous potential in the tourism industry, as the results of this survey, as in previous studies, again affirm the diversity and wealth of Sa Pa tourism resources in its ability to meet the demands of tourists.

Sa Pa continues to be a unique chance for tourists to explore new landscapes and cultures. The results of the survey revealed that there were some predominant reasons, for which tourists come to Sa Pa. The fresh mountainous climate, the culture of ethnic minority communities and the beautiful landscape were the most important reasons determining trips to Sa Pa for tourists. Of the total of 54 tourists interviewed (including 26 domestic and 28 international individuals), there were 37 individuals (68.5%) who choose the climate, 35 individuals (64.8%) who came to see the ethnic cultures, and 34 (62.9%) who said their reason for visiting Sa Pa was to enjoy the scenery.

Most of the tourists interviewed gave four to six different reasons for visiting Sa Pa (30/50 individuals or 55.6%).

Among foreign and domestic tourists, there were more differences between the reasons given by the two groups for visiting Sa Pa for half of the tourists surveyed (27/54 or 50%), in which the ratio of foreigners who displayed a knowledge of the differences was 15/28 (53.6%), higher than that of Vietnamese (12/26 or 46.2%). Among Vietnamese tourists, the ratio of people who had come to Sa Pa for the first time, recognised the differences between foreign and domestic motives less (3/14 or 21.4% of those who were visiting for the first time) in comparison to those who had come several times and did acknowledge that foreign and domestic tourists had different motives for travel to the area (9/12 or 75%). Most of the Kinh business townspeople (79.3%) further affirmed the existence of differences between these two types of tourists when asked (see Table 2).

Table 1: Main reasons for coming to Sa Pa

Table 2: Recognition of differences among reasons for visiting
Sa Pa between Vietnamese and foreign tourists

In general, the overall opinion gathered from the consistent answers of the above three groups interviewed was that there are differences between foreign and Vietnamese tourist interests in Sa Pa. Most of them also affirmed that the biggest difference is that most Vietnamese tourists come to enjoy the pleasant climate, while foreigners come to see the unique native cultures of ethnic minority communities. All of the groups interviewed agreed that foreigners largely visit because they want to see the famous landscape, to enjoy physical activities such as hiking and mountain climbing, or to be in a clean, unpolluted environment, while the majority of Vietnamese come to relax, enjoy the cool mountain air and escape from the urban heat of the Delta region, see the "love market", or to buy ethnic minority handicrafts.

Thus, the underlying motivations for Vietnamese tourists to visit Sa Pa were quite different from that of foreigners. The main motivation for coming of Vietnamese tourists appears to be relaxation and restoring physiological health, whereas foreigners aim to satisfy their desire to understand other cultures, explore new landscapes or to enjoy sporting activities.

Regardless of the difference between foreign and Vietnamese tourists in their reasons for coming to Sa Pa as determined before the start of their trips, both groups claimed to gain the same high appreciation for the culture of the ethnic minority groups once they explored Sa Pa. The ethnic minority cultures are considered to be among the most important factors attracting tourists to Sa Pa; 25/28 foreigners, and 25/26 Vietnamese tourists shared this opinion. The beautiful landscape was second among attractive factors by the ratio of answers among foreigners. This is in line with the comments of the business townspeople; 93.1% of them said that mainly the ethnic cultures attracted tourist, 82.8% of them mentioned the pleasant climate, and 79.3% mentioned the unpolluted environment as also being a large factor.

IV. SPATIAL SCOPE OF IMPACTS OF TOURISM INDUSTRY IN SA PA DISTRICT

In vicinities nearby the town, the traditional culture of the ethnic minorities is in danger of commercialisation. Such changes drive foreign tourists further away from town in order to see more original and intact cultures of ethnic minority communities, bringing waves of tourist activity further out to more surrounding areas.

The participation of these communes in the tourism industry has been restricted to selling hand-made embroidered clothes or other traditional handicraft products. Apart from the sale of these products, they also occasionally sell some agricultural or forestry products in the town of Sa Pa. So far, these communes do not have street children selling wares, but only adult females who street-sell local products.

It can be said that the main benefit that the tourism industry has brought to the district area has been economic. It has been unequally distributed between localities in the territory and between different ethnic groups. This conclusion corresponds to the common opinions of the communes’ authorities, representatives of different organisations and the local ethnic people.

Almost all of the interviewees agreed that the town and its Kinh people were the ones who received the biggest share of benefits from tourism, and that minorities only gained a very small part. The absolute number and relative proportion of minority people directly involved in and benefiting from tourism was very small in comparison with those Kinh in the town. In addition, the proportion gets smaller if the comparison is made with the total district population.

V. POSITIVE IMPACTS OR BENEFITS OF TOURISM

A. Town of Sa Pa and its Kinh business community

The benefits that tourism brings to the town of Sa Pa differ very little from previously known benefits of the industry. The successful development of tourism in Sa Pa has relied mainly on the increase of the number of tourists, which has stimulated investment in technical infrastructure and services, further accompanied with an explosion of new hotels and restaurants.

Over the last several years, the face of the town has changed dramatically in some places, unrecognisable from decades past, due to rapid change and development. At present, the concentration of profits gained within the town’s boundaries and the steady increase in the number of tourists coming to Sa Pa has made investors consider it a very bright prospect. Not only the local townspeople but also many private, as well as outside state companies, have rushed to Sa Pa to invest in construction, trade activities and tourism services. This will result in the growth of investment capital and assets for the local community and the overall prosperity of Sa Pa.

Sa Pa has become animated, keeping pace with integration into the developmental and socio-economic transformation of the country. Thanks to the improvement of supply and demand conditions, goods imported from other areas are in abundance, and cheaper and easier to purchase in Sa Pa. Long-time residents of the town would not like to pass up the opportunity to gain a profit from the tourism industry. They will make every effort to participate in this promising and accessible industry. According to the Province’s statistics, the number of family businesses and services in the district of Sa Pa has increased from 102 families in 1991, to 346 in 1995, or three to four times in four years. It may be said that most of this change has taken place in the town’s territory.

To meet the needs of tourism development as well as to create favourable conditions for gaining benefits from tourism, the local authorities have made efforts in town planning, investment in basic technical infrastructure, and development of town roads, transportation systems and main tourist routes. They have also created and implemented some projects, aimed at the development of tourist sites in order to increase their convenience and attraction for visitors.

Thanks to these efforts, the provision of electricity and communication and postal services have improved remarkably in Sa Pa and have benefited the local community as a whole. As reported by district leaders, investment is also being aimed at solving the issues of water provision and garbage collection. Some precedents for cultural and economic services have been or are being constructed such as construction of the town’s indoor marketplace, the inauguration of the district’s Cultural House, and the planned renovation of the stadium.

Currently, scenic gardens, eco-tourism complexes, and an artificial lake and park construction are all in the investment process. The local authorities are also making efforts to implement measures to manage a healthy direction for tourism development.

B. Rural areas and ethnic minority communities

A large proportion of the profits from tourism have been concentrated in urban areas, directed to the Kinh people, with a considerable amount of the profits being drawn out from the district’s boundaries as tours are often organised from Hanoi (the surveys show that more than 20% of foreign tourists travelling with a guide in Sa Pa were using guides from Hanoi). However, relatively speaking, it may be said that tourism has had certain positive effects on ethnic minority communities and their territories.

1. Employment and Income

From the point of view of other ‘stakeholders’, i.e. tourists and Kinh business people, 77.8% (42/54) of the total tourists surveyed believed that the ethnic minority communities gained financial benefits from tourism (domestic 88.5%, international tourists 67.9%), while 44.4% (24/54: 61.6% domestic and 28.6% foreign tourists) thought that they gained in the form of employment opportunities. The opinions of Kinh business townspeople were similar; 93.1% (27/29) believed that tourism brought financial benefits and 69.0% (20/29) said it brought employment opportunities to ethnic minority communities.

Tourism development has increased the consumption demand of visitors on local products, both material and cultural, within and outside district boundaries. Meeting this demand has created valuable income for local ethnic minority producers.

The income generation from tourism by ethnic minority communities in Sa Pa, mainly by H’mong and Dao ethnic groups, may be divided into several areas.

The most profitable tourism activity by ethnic minority communities is the direct or indirect sale of cultural or handicraft products to visitors. Participants in this activity in Sa Pa are street-sellers, mostly H’mong and Dao people, comprised of female elders, young women, children and a very small number of males.

As some researchers have written, the tourist is not a completely new phenomenon to ethnic minority communities in Sa Pa, due to the appearance of the French and other Europeans in the area since the beginning of the twentieth century. Historically, outsiders often walked or rode on horses to visit villages and bought the handicraft products of ethnic minority people. However, the communication between tourists and the local people was very limited, so the impact of the former on the latter has not been very significant.

The number of tourists has increased in recent years, and as tourists (mostly foreign) are starting to express an interest in ethnic minority lifestyles and a willingness to buy local embroidered products and jewelry as souvenirs, the participation of the ethnic minority communities in tourism and its services continues to develop and grow.

In the beginning, minority people would sell anything they had (even items still in-use) which might be coveted after being noticed by a tourist. Later, after recognising the opportunity, some of the minorities, of their own initiative, made clothing and jewelry themselves or bought them from others to sell to tourists in the market.

As the production of embroidered products is very time and labour intensive, the availability of ready-to-sell pieces gradually decreased. Eventually, street-sellers quickly adapted by either purchasing handicrafts from people who either could not go to the market often or did not have the time and conditions to engage in the activity (such as lack of capital or familiarity with street-selling skills), and shifted the buying from one to another, to sell to tourists. Ethnic minority people would rather buy and directly re-sell their own products to tourists than sell them to the shops of Kinh business townspeople in the town to re-sell in turn. Other practices started, such as the selling of old collected pieces of family cloth which were refurbished to suit the tastes of tourists. In addition, as the demand for embroidered products increases, the more traditional patterns, which required considerable time and labour to produce, were modified and simplified to curb the rise of production costs.

Also according to them, compared to the H’mong women, the Dao women are more free because of several reasons. The Dao do not weave their own cloth on which to embroider, as the H’mong do. Moreover, the designs of the Dao are simpler and they use a faster embroidering technique in which they can pattern a design using only one side of the material. These reasons may contribute to the fact that among the commune’s street-sellers, from the ages of 20 to 50, Dao women comprise the majority, numbering four to five times more as compared to H’mong street-sellers.

Also according to this survey, the most common goods marketed by street-sellers are embroidered items, including clothing, collars, belts, hats and bags, and other ethnic handicrafts such as jewellery, traditional pan-pipes, and flutes. There are individuals who sell old embroidered clothing, dye chemicals and loose embroidered pieces to be used as materials to produce more clothing for sales to tourists. There are others who sell forest goods, such as orchids, and other ornamental or medicinal plants. There are some merchants who meet the local demand for essential medicines such as deep heat oil and other health remedies, dyeing chemicals, bridal and other traditional head-dresses, etc.

In comparison with the adult street-sellers, street children have a more limited range of goods to sell; jewellery (mostly bracelets) and traditional musical instruments (flutes and mouthharps) were the most common ones. Among 26 interviewed there were 25 children (96.1%) selling jewellery (of which 20, or 76.9%, were selling bracelets) and 24 children (92.3%) selling musical instruments (of which 22, or 84.6%, were selling mouthharps). There were only five (19.2%) selling hats, four (15.4%) selling embroidered bags, three (11.5%) selling woollen embroidered shirt cuffs, and one selling pieces of embroidered cloth. (see Table 3)

Table 3: Common products sold

The street children only have two types of customers: foreign and Vietnamese tourists. Out of the 26 children interviewed, 24 (92.3%) said they have had foreign customers and 16 (61.5%) have had Vietnamese ones. The children said that the foreign tourists as customers have by far a much higher tendency to buy more expensive products and to buy in larger quantities in comparison to the Vietnamese. Therefore, 24/27 (88.9%) of the street-sellers said that they are able to sell products to foreign tourists, while only 13/27 (48.1%) successfully sold to domestics ones.

In answering the question regarding whether there was an increasing demand for any of their products in particular, there were only 9/27 (33.3%) street-sellers who answered yes, a majority of 14/27 (51.8%) who replied no and 4/27 (14.8%) who did not respond. Of the nine affirmative replies, four street-sellers indicated embroidered clothing (usually shirts, jackets, or vests) as being in increasing demand, two who said hats and mouthharps and one individual who sold more bags and jewellery than in the past. The latter was of the Giµy minority and she usually sold her products to other ethnic people and street-sellers.

So far, the sale of ethnic products, which are considered either exotic or depicting
’ethnic’ ingenuity, is the most well-known way to earn income among ethnic minority people as it continues to involve a larger portion of the ethnic minority communities in the tourism sector. It contributes a considerable, even very important part, to the household income of many H’mong and Dao families in Sa Pa.

Questioned on the importance of the market income in relation to their total household one, except for two who did not respond, the remainder of 25/27 (92.6%) street-sellers acknowledged the importance or significance. Of the total number of respondents, 18/25 individuals or 72% considered it very important, 3/25 (12%) said that it was of moderate importance and only 4/25 (16%) stated that it was of little importance. The street children themselves recognised this significance, but they evaluated it lower than the adults did. Only one girl said it was very important, 15/22 (68.2%) children said that the sum that they earned was moderately important for their family income, and six (27.3%) others thought that it contributed a very small part to their household income.

The average income per week of a street-seller from this activity ranges from 10,000 VND to 200,000 VND per week, equivalent to about 50,000 VND to 800,000 VND/month. According to the sellers, sales vary because often it can take anywhere from a day to a week to sell only one or two products. On the other hand, sometimes they are lucky and may meet more agreeable customers, earning some hundreds of thousands of VND per week.

Of 26 (100%) respondents, ten (38.5%) had an average income of 10,000 to 25,000 VND per week (including nine H’mong group and one Dao), eight (30.8%) earned from 35,000 to 55,000 VND, and another eight (30.8%) earned more than 100,000 VND. In general the average income for the Dao was a little higher than that of the H’mong, correspondingly 72,800 VND per week for Dao as compared to 67,2000 VND per week for H’mong (see Table 5).

Table 5: Average weekly profit

Among the street-sellers, those who ran retail sales gained considerably more stable and higher profits than the average. Usually they earned from 200,000 to 600,000 VND per transaction, or an income of 150,000 to 250,000 VND per week or more.

There was an observable difference between male and female traders in income. While the average income for the total of interviewed street-sellers was 71,500 VND, the average income for males (three interviewed) was 150,000 VND. This can be due in part to the fact that two of the three individuals, besides selling traditional ethnic pan-flutes, also performed dances and traditional music for guests for money — a service which has almost no competitors and is always in demand. The third male is a young man who runs the retail sale of imported Chinese goods near the border area, earning substantial profits.

The money earned from sales to tourists is spent for purchasing daily household goods and necessities. Thus, 26/27 (96.3%) street-sellers reported that they spent this money for rice, salt, sauces and preserves, kerosene, etc. — the majority being spent for rice. Seventeen (63.0%) individuals spent some money on buying gifts for their children, nine (33.3%) on miscellaneous household goods, ten (37.0%) saved it, five (18.5%) bought fertiliser and seeds, and one (3.7%) said she hired labour to assist with fieldwork with the money. Also due to the sizeable income from some tourist sales, 23/26 street children interviewed (88.5%) said that they give their money earned in town to their parents; 17 (65.4%) said they use the money to pay for their daily expenditures from staying in the town, 14 (53.8%) saved the money, only a small number of the children bought sweets or treats for themselves (six individuals, 23.1%), and a few bought clothing or gifts (three individuals, 11.5%).

According to the reports of some commune officials, thanks to the fact that women have been earning relatively high income as compared with the local standards, their role and status in the households has likely been improved. In addition, due to the time required to engage in the market, the division of labour in the families also somehow has been adjusted to save time for these activities in the town, males taking care of some of the work previously delegated to their wives.

Another income-generating activity for households from tourism is guiding tourists around and up Phanxipan Mountain, the tallest peak in Viet Nam. It is not an especially popular activity in ethnic minority communities, but it brings considerable earnings to those who choose to engage in it.

Among tourists, mostly foreign, there are those who come to Sa Pa for hiking and climbing, the biggest attraction for some being conquering the peak of Phanxipan. The ethnic minority people, especially the H’mong, are the local indigenous communities who not only know the mountain territories and its forests but are also experts on climbing. Because the guides usually come from either the town of Sa Pa or other lowland areas, and they are all Kinh people who cannot independently satisfy the demand for tourism of this type, they have to call on local indigenous people for assistance.

According to the ethnic people, as well as the Vietnamese guides interviewed, on average the daily wage of such H’mong guides is 100,000 VND or more. So with each trip lasting three to five days, an ethnic guide can earn at least 300,000 — 500,000 VND. Usually each Kinh guide, guesthouse or restaurant engaging in the activity, organises their own self-established group of minorities as guides. Therefore, the number of H’mong people involved in this type of tourism activity is limited. However, in our opinion the main reason that the participation is low is because the number of tourists demanding these services is also low.

According to local commune officials, all of the ethnic minority households who have members involved in trekking services have dramatically upgraded their standard of living and now are well-known within their own communities — all thanks to the relatively high income which can be derived from guiding treks.

Minority people can further benefit from tourism by opening vending stalls in the villages which are located along routes leading to tourist sites. This activity has just recently come into practice within the minority groups of the H’mong and Dao, based on the tourist demand for certain items, such as refreshments, sweets or other everyday products. However, the total number of households involved in vending is not high. Frequency of involvement is mostly related to the advantage in terms of the location of the households. The income generated in this activity is not very high because tourist consumption is limited. According to many of the local people, tourists usually plan and take food and refreshments along with them for their whole trip. They only buy extra items along the way as they occasionally need them.

Minority people could benefit more from tourists if the guests visiting the households were encouraged to give gifts or some entrance fee to see the households — 21/28 (75%) foreign tourists and 13/27 (48.1%) Vietnamese tourists reported that they had visited ethnic minority homes. Although this income is valuable, it is not important if you look at its economic value and at the number of tourists who engage in the activity. Only 2/27 (7.4%) Vietnamese and 4/28 (14.3%) foreign tourists said they gave money or gifts to households. Most of them, if they gave anything at all, gave only small gifts like notebooks, notebook paper, pens or sweets. The value of the gifts usually were from one to five thousand VND, and it was rare if the tourists gave money. Thus these items are of little help in improving the households’ daily economic situation.

The profitable exception to hosting tourists is when ethnic minority households have tourists paying to stay overnight in their houses. In such cases, the tourists or their guides pay some money to the hosts, about 10,000 — 20,000 VND/guest/night. Overnight tourists may ask and pay for meals or refreshments, in which case the host may provide the guests with some of their family food supply, mostly their own products. The number of households who have tourists staying overnight at their houses in the communes is very limited. Only several in each village or in the whole commune located on tourist routes may have overnight guests. These households usually have formerly established relationships with the Kinh guides, or guesthouse/restaurant owners in town. However, 55.5% of households interviewed cited the attraction of tourists to overnight stays in villages as one of the ways to increase profits for ethnic minority communities.

Due to the differences among the main reasons for coming to Sa Pa between the two types of tourists, the Vietnamese rarely hire guides during their stay in Sa Pa. Only 2/ 27 ((7.4%) Vietnamese have used the service, while more than a half of the foreigners have (15/28 or 53.6%). Guides mostly come from Hanoi, if the tourists come to Sa Pa with an organised tour (21.4%), or they may come from the guesthouses or restaurants in the town (57.2%). Only three individuals (21.4%) among the guides interviewed lead treks with the assistance of the local ethnic people (among which two went with young H’mong girls and one with a H’mong villager he meets along the way). These statistics confirm the opinion of the local people, which is that there is very limited involvement of the ethnic people in these types of services. There are only a small number of youth, mostly the street children of some communes, who are involved in the service. However, it creates a certain income under varied forms, for ethnic minority families, albeit on a limited scale.

The desire to understand the culture of ethnic minority communities includes the wish to learn about their traditional cultural activities. For example, the Green Bamboo Guesthouse in Sa Pa invites some people of ethnic minority communities to perform traditional music on Friday each week. Of the surveyed children, 3/26 (11.5%) had participated in a music performance. The income per performer from such a presentation for two to three hours is about 20,000 - 30,000 VND with free soft drinks. Besides this type of organised presentation, several H’mong men come to town to give a music or dance show upon tourists’ request. The fee for such a show is only 1,000 — 2,000 VND per individual, but the ethnic minority men can earn about 30,000 - 50,000 VND per weekend.

 h) Marketing for hotels and restaurants

The street children, aside from selling goods, accompanying or guiding tourists on local trips, doing music performances, or just talking with tourists, also do marketing for hotels and restaurants by bringing tourists to particular business establishments. They can receive money according to the number of tourists they bring to these hotels and restaurants. Of the children interviewed, 24/26 (92.3%) said that they spent considerable time with tourists and 6/26 (23.1%) said that they engaged in marketing for restaurants and guesthouses.

The influx of tourists has increased the demand on food and agricultural products in Sa Pa. Although the Kinh people have shown a stronger ability to adapt quickly to this demand, the two ethnic minority communities in the neighbouring areas have also shown signs of adjusting.

This agricultural transformation process has occurred along with the support of many development projects and programs such as the State’s Sedentarisation Programme, the Agricultural Extension Programme, the Forestry Development Project, etc. Although these projects have different aims, the final goal is to improve the living standards of the local people so that they can try to link or integrate themselves with other branches of economy when possible, including most recently, tourism. Moreover, thanks to the increased demand for some products, the price for local agricultural products has grown and as a result, the local people are marketing their products more easily, with higher profits.

The collection and consumption of forest products and the traditional natural resources used by ethnic minority communities, has been affected by the growth of tourism, though to what extent has been difficult to determine. The issues of the depletion and preservation of timber and non-timber forest products are very important, and thus is afforded some special consideration under section VII (The Environmental Impacts of Tourism) of this report.

The rapid growth of housing construction and technical infrastructure development in order to meet a rapidly increasing number of tourists, leads to an increasing demand on local workers, thereby extending employment opportunities for ethnic minority communities. Most of them are unskilled workers, but healthy and strong nonetheless. Usually, they are hired by Kinh townspeople to do simple but strenuous jobs, for relatively low wages.

2. Integration into the market economy

The rapid growth in the number of tourists coming to Sa Pa over a short period of time, accompanied with the development of hotels, restaurants and other services, thereby increasing opportunities for communication with outsiders, and the availability of information, is likely to allow the local people to recognise new worlds, completely different from their everyday lives. They also understand the alternatives of supplemental income to augment the quality of life during their long-lasting food shortages. In this context, the local people have been adapting to tourism development in particular, and to socio-economic development in Sa Pa in general. In the process alone, their perception and socio-economic vision has been changing radically so that, in some instances, onlookers may think that the ethnic minority communities and their cultures are becoming commercialised.

In reality, commercialisation is a factor encouraging local people to overcome the limitations of a subsistence economy, stimulating them to understand and undertake new economic opportunities, alternatives and ways to more effectively satisfy their material and cultural needs. Consequently, commercialisation may help them to better integrate into the common life of a society that is much larger than their own.

In this process, many products, normally used only for household consumption, gradually have become goods that are exchanged in the market. Thanks to the marketplace, the local ethnic minority communities have more opportunities to satisfy their every day needs. Therefore, their production and their products are gradually becoming more and more market-oriented, as they themselves integrate into the common system of division of labour.

Facing the tourist demand, the ethnic minority people have recognised that they can produce many traditional items to market to tourists. This, in our opinion, has more or less stimulated the development or restoration of local handicrafts of ethnic minority communities. For example, 23/27 (85%) street-sellers interviewed and 7/26 (26.9%) H’mong street children reported that they sold products made by their families, and 11/27 (40.7%) street-sellers and 1/26 (3,8%) children sold products bought by them directly from their communities’ own village producers.

However, although many of these products, which are often produced by traditional handicraft methods, have an original and exotic quality, they are also time and labour intensive to produce. Under these conditions, the ethnic minority communities have found alternatives such as re-using their old clothes to make products. After a few alterations, an item can be re-made from old clothes which have few or no holes into new garments which suit tourists’ tastes, and can be made available at the market for a reasonable price acceptable to both tourists and producers. Other pieces of old clothing may be used to make hats, bags, collars, belts or can serve as extra fabric to add to new embroidered clothes if needed.

As mentioned earlier, the high consumption of agricultural products including vegetables, fruit, and meat by tourists has encouraged some people to adjust their production structures.

Not only the way the ethnic minority communities think has been changed in their direct production or participation in marketing their own goods, but the local people also have recognised that the direct trade of goods is a good source of income. The work is considerably less difficult than traditional trade, while it is more hopeful and effective. Therefore, the number of local ethnic minority people involved in the direct sale of goods to tourists, goods which may be produced by others, bought in the town from Kinh shops or just sold for commission, has increased rapidly. This activity used to be carried out only by the majority Kinh population.

Besides the buying of goods for sale from producers, there were 9/27 (33.3%) street-sellers and 17/26 (65.4%) children who bought from wholesalers in the villages or town, one (3.7%) street-seller and 6/26 (23.1%) children who bought from town shops and one (3.7%) who sold goods for commission from Sa Pa shops. They have begun to keep accounts of their profits, make cost-benefit analyses of their market activities, and adapt overall to the market economy.

Thanks to increasing commercial consciousness, the ethnic minority communities in Sa Pa are continuing to find new opportunities to work and new sources of income, while at the same time diversifying their economic activities.

Of course in the process of integration into a market economy, the ethnic minority communities, with their little experience, suffer from many disadvantages in competition with other groups, predominately with the Kinh townspeople. However, objectively, Sa Pa market is only one of a number of representative examples, on a small scale where the usual market economy rules apply. By its very nature, it is similar to the competition within one ethnic group such as among the Kinh e.g. between urban and rural Kinh. It may possibly be compared with the competition between developing countries, such as between developing countries like Vietnam and developed countries on a global scale.

The majority of the ethnic minority communities, have recognised these issues and they themselves are strongly determined to strive for a foothold in the market economy of the region. This struggle is one of the major factors in their efforts for equality with other communities. The important thing here is to develop the appropriate policies and measures to facilitate the conditions necessary for equality to occur. Opportunities need to be made for the local people to improve their knowledge, skills and competitive capacity in the development process, for communities to assess the inadequacies and reduce inequality in information, financial and technical development, and for the overall process to reduce the negative impacts of the market while contributing equally to the welfare of all people.

3. Expansion of communication and knowledge

The growth of tourism in Sa Pa has brought more opportunities for communication and the expansion and broadening of the knowledge and way of thinking of the local ethnic minorities. These opportunities become a key factor for the continued development of ethnic minority communities in the region.

The results of the survey showed that for both groups of Vietnamese and foreign tourists their cultural interactions with ethnic minority communities, such as visiting minority villages, homes and families, talking with them in the streets, or making friends with them, are more predominate than material or economic exchanges. Among the types of material interactions their only communication during the buying of ethnic traditional handicrafts is significant. It may reveal that the degree of cultural interactions with ethnic minority communities is higher among foreign tourists than Vietnamese ones (see Table 6).

Table 6: Types of interaction with ethnic minority communities

The interaction between Kinh business townspeople with ethnic minority communities has mainly physical and commercial characters. Among such interactions, trading orchids and forest-products have the greatest frequency of 15/ 29 (51.7%) interviewed cases, followed by buying wood, firewood (8 cases, or 27.6%), hiring ethnic minority communities as guides, doing other types of work or trading ethnic minority traditional handicrafts or materials (7 cases, 24.1% for each type). The ratio of those buying agricultural products from the ethnic minorities is still low at 3/29 or 10.3%.

In some cases, the Kinh business townspeople assist ethnic minority communities considerably with their work, for example, by teaching them how to embroider motives that suit tourists.

In fact, Kinh relations with ethnic minority people are not simply commercial, but in some cases display a mutual, close, and co-operation aspect. In response to the question regarding the experiences of doing business with ethnic minority communities, 9/20 (45%) of those who answer said it is necessary to be friendly with them; seven (35%) said being faithful, clear and fair in economic relations was most important; five (25%) mentioned the same attitudes should be reflected when minorities are facing difficulties; and five (25%) said to be sincere and to trust them (4/20 or 20%).

Most of the ethnic minority people themselves really have a desire to communicate with tourists and broaden their horizons. They feel that when they communicate with tourists, their life is more interesting, exciting and more fulfilling. Of 110 ethnic households interviewed, 78 (70.9%) enjoy meeting foreign and 55/110 (50%) enjoy meeting Vietnamese tourists because they found that tourists bring them new ideas when they have opportunities to have cultural exchanges with them. Similarly, 82/110 (74.5%) preferred foreign and 55/110 (50%) preferred Vietnamese tourists because they found that their lives are more interesting and exciting from the interaction with these groups. The need expressed for social interactions has a higher frequency than that of materials ones. (See Table 7)

Table 7: Reasons that ethnic minority communities enjoy tourists and tourism

The desire to communicate with tourists stimulated the willingness of ethnic minority people to study foreign and Vietnamese languages to manage their business directly and to introduce tourists to their lives and cultures. Of households interviewed, 86.4% said they would be willing to learn a foreign language, of which 88.4% would like to learn English and 8.4% were interested in both English and Vietnamese. Almost all of the women interviewed said that they would like to learn Vietnamese, while children and youth would like to learn not only Vietnamese but also other foreign languages in order to communicate with foreign tourists.

There were 6/27 street-sellers who said that they used English when they sold their goods to tourists, despite their limited vocabulary. The interviews revealed that 20/27 of them used Vietnamese while 17 had to use their hands to communicate in trading.

Besides the need of selling goods to foreign tourists, most of the street children would like to communicate or talk and go on walks with tourists. The result is that they rapidly learn English, mostly from foreign tourists, and also understand more about the tourists and their countries. Of the street children interviewed, 16/26 said that they used English while selling goods to foreign tourists, 21/26 used Vietnamese, and 6/26 used their mother tongue.

The communication with tourists and the extending tourism market encourages the demand among ethnic minority people for new types of products. This subsequently has had an impact on stimulating the growth of production and goods exchange among ethnic minority communities to satisfy their new, growing needs.

The result of the survey shows, that 48% (13/27) of Vietnamese tourists and 34.5% (10/29) Kinh business townspeople believed that the minorities gain the benefit of assimilation into Vietnamese society and culture, while virtually no (1/28) foreign tourists believed that assimilation was a benefit from tourism. In contrast, the three groups were fairly in agreement with the belief that ethnic minority communities benefited from the new ideas brought by tourists from outside worlds to Sa Pa: 33.3% (9/27) Vietnamese, 32% (9/28) foreign tourists and 31% (9/29) Kinh business townspeople. Meanwhile, 11% (3/27) Vietnamese, 36% (10/28) foreign tourists and 21% (6/29) Kinh business townspeople said that tourists also bring education benefits for the local ethnic minority communities.

4. Strengthening investment

Thanks to tourism, individuals and many organisations, including governmental and non-governmental, have learned more information about Sa Pa, about its ethnic minority communities, and their ways of life and cultural traditions. Some of the characteristics that have been revealed are: the diverse and valuable tourism resources, the concerns with the negative tourism impacts on local natural resources as well as on the traditions and unique culture of the local ethnic minority communities; the warm feelings of foreigners to the honest and charming minority people, which came from their own short tourism trips to Sa Pa or through the stories of other tourists visited Sa Pa, and the awareness of their hard lives.

All factors have attracted the attention and concern of many tourists, individuals and organisations. The awareness has encouraged many groups to come to Sa Pa to conduct research, and especially important for the minorities, to come to directly invest in the local socio-economic development, capacity-building, and conservation of their original culture and traditional handicrafts.

Other examples are the Ethnic Minority Leadership Training Project, sponsored by CIDA and the Canadian Ambassador in Hanoi and the Nutrition Project to develop household animal husbandry, sponsored by BFDW, aimed at ethnic minority women of many communes within the district. Some representatives of various NGOs working with community-based health care and volunteers now are working in Sa Pa to help with health issues.

The improvement of the road system within the district and ones like it on the outskirts, partly as a component of tourism development, has positively pushed up the inter and intra-regional goods exchange allowing more goods to reach more villages at a lower price. With new vending stalls opened on the improved routes, villagers can buy everyday necessity items easily without having to go ten kilometres out of their villages. Previously, they had to wait for the weekend to go shopping. They can also market their products more easily in their villages.

All these things certainly have brought and will continue to bring benefits to the local ethnic minority people, contributing to the improvement in the quality of living and in the efforts to conserve their indigenous nature as well as cultural heritage. According to the results of the survey, 14/29 (48.3%) of the Kinh business townspeople surveyed believed that the minorities benefited from an improved quality of life from tourism. But only 2/26 (7.7%) Vietnamese and 3/28 (10.7%) foreign tourists shared this opinion. There were four Vietnamese (15.4%), six foreign (21.4%) tourists and three Kinh business townspeople (19.3%) who said that the minorities benefit from modernisation overall.

The improvement of the traffic system in and around Sa Pa has positively stimulated the sale of goods to areas outside of Sa Pa as well as within Sa Pa itself. The quantity of goods available has increased and most prices have been lowered. Many shops have opened, making it easier for the local people to purchase the goods they want, while requiring neither extensive travel nor long delays until the weekend - as in the past. The products are more easily transported and sold overall.

VI. NEGATIVE IMPACTS OF TOURISM

Tourism development brings many benefits to ethnic minority communities, however the scale of benefits remains limited if it takes into account the ratio of individuals or households who can gain these benefits in comparison to the total district population. This also holds true if one compares the area positively impacted to the total district area. Besides, it produces negative impacts with possibly latent negative consequences, which may be difficult to prevent or correct.

1. Street-sellers / Vendors

However, this phenomenon has negative aspects and, particularly, as it is more and more widespread, has raised the concern of many people, including tourists. Its negative side is reflected in the method of marketing goods to tourists by the ethnic minority street-sellers; many old women, and sometimes young children, follow closely and surround tourists constantly in Sa Pa in order to sell their goods. They implore and sometimes even ask for money indirectly through the sale of goods. Such trading practices cause troubles for tourists, creating feelings of discomfort, especially through restaurant windows during their meal times. There were 7/28 (25%) foreign tourists who complained about this issue. Many Kinh town’s business people had this opinion too. The general opinion of the community and the authorities of the surveyed communes is the same, that they are ashamed of what their people do. They think that this practice should be controlled.

The concern for the negative aspects of the street-sellers is not only routed from the hassles and troubles created for tourists, but also is related to the concern of the degradation of local ethnic minority traditions and unique cultures. Some foreign tourists interviewed asked if it was true that the street-sellers leave their families, agricultural and housework duties to stay in the town under bad living conditions to seek easy tourist money and if this will destroy the socio-economic well-established and functional familial structure of the ethnic minority communities. Besides this, they were also worried that the increasing number of street-sellers may increase competition pressure among themselves and thus, when the goods supply is higher than the demand, it may lead to them becoming aggressive. Furthermore, some may not be able to sell anything, therefore their lives will become more difficult as they become accustomed to their out-of-home duties.

The issue of the street-sellers appears first of all, as a consequence of the pressure resulting from the difficult economic situations of the ethnic minority communities.

Thus, among 27 street-sellers interviewed, 11 individuals (40.7%) said they would rather rest at home with their children if their family did not suffer from food shortages. Many of them said that at the beginning, when they started being a street-seller

following tourists around, they themselves felt very ashamed. But because there were many others doing it and who could sell products well, they chose to do so, and over time became used to it. Some other street-sellers (15/27 or 55.6%) said that they will continue doing tourists sales even though they have enough food, because they would like to be able to purchase other necessities for their families or to save a certain amount of money as capital.

The general opinion on the issue of street-sellers, expressed by interviewed villagers, representatives of communes’ Women’s Unions, Youth, male elders of villages, heads of clans and communes officials were all agreed on the point that the way of marketing goods to tourists, currently practised by many street-sellers, is not welcome and embarrassing for the communities. But, to deal with the issue it needs not only education (the authorities and communes’ social organisations have held meetings, described and tried to alert sellers to the issue individually and through their families many times with very little success), but also other means such as the provision of fixed places at the market in combination with strict measures, including enforcing people to market at stable sites. All people interviewed said that in order to solve the problem, measures need to be implemented in parallel for all the street-sellers.

In reality, among the street-sellers, many, especially young and middle aged women, usually less than 45 years of age, had a willingness to stay in fixed places to sell goods to tourists. In addition to the reason that they would neither like to be ignored nor the cause of complaint, they felt that it would be more pleasant overall. They could also benefit from fixed vending locations as they could sell their embroidery works collectively, which they cannot do wandering along the streets.

However, another issue likely to emerge with the minority sellers when they come to sell products in the market is that they worry about competitors with the Kinh town traders at a common market place. Many of ethnic minority people said they would like to have separate spaces from Kinh town traders to market their goods. Regarding the sales of embroidered and other traditional handicraft products, people said they could either stay on the ground or first floor, but for selling fresh crops, fruits or animal products they would prefer spaces on the ground floor. The best option would be if they could be provided with open-air spaces rather than in concrete buildings.

Out of nine street-sellers who go home in the evenings, five individuals said it was because of the close distance from their homes, and four others stated they do not stay because of high costs or not having sleeping quarters.

In reality, among those street-sellers who stayed overnight in the town, there were many individuals who have very poor sleeping conditions. Some stayed at Kinh guesthouses for ethnic minority people with a fee of 1,000 VND a night. Even this very low price seemed unacceptable to many ethnic minority communities sellers. Many did not want to spend it, and some of them slept right along the side of the street, or on the verandahs of Kinh houses. In both cases, the people did not have enough warm blankets to cover themselves during cool nights. These sellers also were very thrifty in spending for meals. Thus the issues facing street-sellers can also include humanitarian ones, regarding the well-being of the people and taking into account the living and health conditions of these sellers in the town.

2. Street children

The issue of ethnic minority children strolling about the town of Sa Pa's streets is attracting the concern of many people of all different social groups. The number of these children is increasing rapidly.

The main reasons for the children coming to Sa Pa market and wandering in the town are: their parents ask them to sell ethnic minority products (18/26 or 69.2% of children interviewed), 10/26 (38.5%) children said they came because their friends encouraged them, and 6/26 (23.1%) of them came to the town voluntarily without any outsider’s influence. Usually, the children came to the market with their friends, represented by 20 of 26 interviewed (76.9%). Only five children (19.2%) came to the market alone. In the other four remaining cases (17.4%), they came with other people from their village, and one went with her family.

The children spent most of their time in the town selling goods (25/26, 96.2% children do this activity) or spending time with foreign tourists (24 children, 92.3%). Selling goods is almost an obligation of the children to contribute to the household income and also to earn their own living in Sa Pa. But spending time with tourists is either a way of earning money or simply an attractive and fun activity for the children.

There were 23/26 (88.5%) children interviewed who said that they stayed overnight in Sa Pa (among which 12 individuals permanently stayed in Sa Pa and four individuals stayed some of the time), and three stated they do not rest there but go home. The main reason that they stay overnight in the town is the distance from home, accounting for 18 among 23 of those who stayed (78.3%).

Of the 23 children, 22 stayed overnight in Sa Pa at guesthouses of some Kinh townspeople, with a fee of 1,000 VND per night. There they sometimes can borrow money from the owner if necessary.

In spite of the positive roles of the street children in their contributions to household income, their education from tourists, and their learning foreign languages and new ways of thinking in the market economy, the accelerating number of the street children and, particularly, their soliciting about the town’s streets also has a negative side. It is a cause for concern because it may likely have latent severe consequences in the long term.

Almost all of them are from seven to fifteen years old, of school age. Only six of these 26 children went or go to school and their education is only of 1st or 2nd grade level. The fact that they leave their native home and village to come to the town so often will stunt their chances of proper schooling. It is worse that, as mentioned above, the number of younger children (seven to eight years old) coming to Sa Pa is increasing.

Family is the nucleus of society, where children are raised and taught to be good individuals. The children leaving family to permanently stay in the town, strolling its streets without the control of adults, can harm and damage traditionally well-established family and clan relationships, destroying strong family traditions as well as those of the community. All of these issues may lead to latently bad consequences or deviant behaviour. It may also result in the devaluation of them by their own communities.

The results of the survey and discussion with local authorities, representatives of commune Women’s Unions, elder village men, and leaders of clans showed a common opinion that there is much concern for the negative aspects of street children. The whole community needs to take actions and measures toward solving the problem and avoiding its spread.

Community members think the fact that H’mong young girls leave their homes, become separated from their duties at home and in the fields, and do not go to school, may lead them to lose the guidance of parents and their community, to become lazy, to lose the ability to do ‘women’s’ work such as embroidering or housework. The people also have expressed concern about the situation of young ethnic minority women having sexual relations with Vietnamese or foreign men, which would result in devaluation of them by their community, and in no men wanting to marry them.

These street children may become used to soliciting in the streets and an exciting life in the town both in a material and non-material sense and consciousness. By Vietnamese standards, they are also becoming used to socialising with many highly educated tourists and/or western foreigners, who come from developed countries and are more ‘rich and polite’ than their village boys and men. In other words, they may become used to things that do not exist in their villages and are much better than they are used to having in their daily lives in the village. As a consequence, they may look away from their home and village, their family and community, and develop a dislike for their difficult, "uninteresting" life at home and their poor, hard working and ‘dirty’ brothers. Some foreign tourists said these H’mong young girls told them that they do not want to go home to the village anymore, and do not want in the future to marry their, in their own words, ‘stupid, dirty’ boys’. They would like to be "girls from western countries" such as America, Germany and Italy, and not be H’mong girls. Seven of 28 (25%) foreign tourists interviewed expressed their considerable concern for these unexpected changes among young H’mong girls. They expressed a need to do something to protect these girls from potentially harmful activities.

The fact that the street children experience no control from family or society, means there is potential for some of them to be easily maltreated or misused, abused sexually, or even may get infected by AIDS and other diseases, things that the whole society is fighting against. The local ethnic minority people, including their authorities as well as their women, male elders, and heads of clans, have expressed a great concern for the possibility of AIDS infection among their street children. In reality, among tourists there may be ill-intentioned individuals, Vietnamese or foreign ones, and it may happen that some young innocent girls have been or will be abused in the future.

A few foreign males reported that H’mong female street children offered opium to them. In addition, in Sa Pa there was a rumour that a few H’mong girls had had sexual relations with foreign males in exchange for money and expensive gifts such as clocks or cameras which they later sold to Vietnamese.

In reality, the local authorities of district and commune levels have been aware of and alarmed of the issue of street children, and have already taken certain concrete measures to solve the problem, to avoid its spreading. Local officials, community members and representatives of different social unions have gathered in meetings to discuss the issue. They have called for community efforts to educate the people, to talk to the parents of the children to raise awareness about the risks facing their children and to find measures for community-based participation in dealing with the issues and other negative impacts of tourism.

The Women’s Unions are among the most active members involved in this campaign. They have tried to launch a women’s campaign to help families and mothers who have street children give attention to educating and controlling their children, to help avoid the possibility of a bad future for their children.

In the opinion of some heads of clans at present, their role within the clans is limited to the ability to convince and to educate by good moral examples and through religious procedures of the clan. However, they have limited power or influence over their clan's members, even in the case of ensuring they perform actions that the clan or the community consider necessary. In this context, they believe the authorities have more power, and a stronger influence over their residents as they can take strict administrative measures to make people observe laws and community regulations.

Particularly, leaders of the district have the intention of creating an inventory and classifying the street children, based on their concrete circumstances, to determine appropriate measures for each case. They plan to send the girls back to their families. In special cases, when the children have particular difficulties, they will be included in a list for the "Centre for Permanent Education" or the District primary school where they can be provided with an education. Those capable children will be given foreign language classes, trained in professional tourism skills and given a political education so that they may become future minority tourism guides or work for other tourism services.

3. The risk of commercialisation

As mentioned above, one of the current environmental and social problems in Sa Pa as a consequence of tourism activities is the risk of commercialisation.

The results of the survey show that 19/29 (65.5%) business townspeople in Sa Pa, 13/27 (48.1%) Vietnamese tourists and 14/28 (50%) foreign tourists recognised the problem of commercialisation as an impact of tourism. Furthermore, the word ‘commercialised’ was used to describe the character of the ethnic minority communities of Sa Pa: 15/29 (51.7%) business people, 9/27 (34.6%) Vietnamese tourists and 6/28 (21.4%) foreign tourists shared this opinion.

The negative effects of commercialisation partly were demonstrated, as mentioned above, by the group of street-sellers or by street children wandering around the town, by the fact that they require money from tourists for taking photos. It is further displayed by the ‘commercialisation’ of several cultural activities like soliciting money for traditional dance performances.

It seems that the local people, slowly, are becoming vulnerable to the strong influence of money. Now, it is likely that not only has poverty forced the ethnic minority communities and their children to leave the villages and separate from everyday chores and responsibilities in order to go to Sa Pa, but it is very likely the attraction of an easy way of making money from tourists, which is much lighter work, also pulls many people to town. There are more than a few of them who lie about the originality or quality of their goods at the market in order to gain higher prices. All of these actions seem to create negative feelings and unrest among street-sellers, making them aggressive, and creating problems that did not exist before.

Commercialisation has influenced and could damage the coherence of the communities within ethnic minority groups. Before their relationships among themselves were predominantly regulated by neighbourhood and family security, by friendship, whereby the community and clan's opinions played crucial roles. Now they are becoming more influenced by the force of money and the tendency is likely pushing its way throughout all the aspects of their lives.

As mentioned above, although the officials of communes, village authorities, the male elders, the heads of clans, and the representatives of social associations have discussed and attempted to alert the families and parents of street children this phenomena, it is still likely expanding and becoming a more serious issue. Caught up by the short-term benefits, several families still continue to encourage their family members and children to do things which are considered bad by the community. Furthermore, some other families can neither control their children and their relatives, nor prevent them from these activities.

Looking at the tendency of ‘commercialisation’, some foreign tourists have expressed the opinion that many cultural traditions of the ethnic minority communities are under threat of degradation. This is demonstrated by the issue of street-sellers and children in the town of Sa Pa, and the ethnic minority communities ‘exchanging’ their culture for the income that tourists bring, possibly becoming too dependent on tourism and tourists lifestyles. They were concerned that the excessive commercialisation within the ethnic minority communities groups may reduce the possibility of the sustainable development of tourism in Sa Pa in general, and of the roles of the ethnic minority communities in tourism in particular.

However, the phenomena of commercialisation is one of the inevitable products of a market economy, and the Sa Pa tourism industry as one sector of its economy, cannot avoid the trend. The next step is to take action to limit the negative impacts of commercialisation.

In fact, the minorities are passively attracted by tourism development due to their limitations in finances, educational levels and working skills. Furthermore, they are neither being paid enough attention nor consulted in tourism development schemes. However, extensive and uncontrolled tourism growth is preventing the capacity of the local people to adapt to the sustainable development of the sector. To attain the goal of sustainable tourism development, education for them could play a very important role toward their understanding the tourism industry. They also need to understand that there are both positive and negative aspects and a need to protect their unique cultural traditions under the impact of tourism. The experiences and lessons from other countries could be considered.

Generally speaking, commercialisation, in terms of its negative impacts, in some instances, is an inevitable consequence of development in general, from which, the ethnic minority communities can hardly avoid in particular, being directly involved in the process. Therefore, in order to confront the challenge of commercialisation and the degradation of ethnic minority cultures, the participation of the community should be encouraged, and the role of authorities on all levels, the different associations, and the whole society should be promoted. Furthermore, the government could draw out sound socio-economic policies, appropriate measures, and technical and financial assistance to ethnic minority people and their communities, in order to develop this young, but hopeful industry.

4) Disappearance or modification of cultural activities

Besides the above-mentioned negative impacts, tourism has influenced some other socio-cultural activities such as possibly being responsible for the disappearance or modification of several cultural activities, among which is the disappearance of the "love market" as already mentioned in other studies.

As it is widely known, the market events are not only economic activities, but also social, cultural ones for the local ethnic minority people after their hard-working days. It is a chance for people to meet each other, for couples, young and old, unmarried or married, to exchange or share their feelings, emotions, news or sing folksong. The crowded presence of tourists, particularly the disrespectful or inappropriate actions of many tourists, have made them hesitant and resistant to being seen in public and wanting to avoid coming to market.

Moreover, the boom of the tourists to Sa Pa has led to extensive disordered construction, directly resulting in the scarcity of land and an increase of price for it. It seems that in this situation the local authorities have failed to protect the ethnic minority communities, maintaining appropriate places for them to conduct their economic and cultural activities without disturbing these long-standing traditions.

VII. ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACTS OF TOURISM

Like ethnic minority communities, the natural environment is considered key when considering the impact of tourism.

The study of DiGregorio commented that natural degradation was a consequence of tourism development, due to the increasing demand for firewood and other forest goods such as orchids, ornamental plants, and the increase of unmanaged garbage in the town of Sa Pa. Frontier Vietnam emphasised the close inter-relationships between the benefits attained by ethnic minority communities from tourism and the conservation of forest resources in Sa Pa. It also reminds us that ‘eco-tourism’ is an effective measure for sustainable tourism development. IUCN has also posed the question of to what extent ethnic minority communities are destroying the remaining forests to meet the demands of tourism or not.

The results of this survey showed that the percentage of total tourists who complained about waste and water/sewage pollution is clearly higher than that of individuals who complained about forest degradation and the killing of wildlife (67.4% and 50.6% for the former in comparison with 34.9% and 16.8% for the latter). While for the Kinh business townspeople, the corresponding figures were 79.3% and 86.2% for waste and water/sewage pollution and 44.8% and 24.1% for forest degradation and the killing of wildlife.

Tourism in Sa Pa has contradictory impacts on local forest resources. On one side it leads to increasing pressures, but on the other side tourism itself also contributes to the reduction of pressures on these resources. Based on the results of the survey and on discussions with commune authorities, representatives from different commune organisation and social groups, the conclusion can be drawn that the impacts on forest resources in Sa Pa have tended to decrease over recent years.

The tendency may be explained in more detail as follows:

Answering the question regarding what the respondents do when there is a food shortage, 78.2% HHs said they sold cardamom, 58.2% sold agricultural products, and 51.8% sold forest products. The gathering and selling of forest products was the third most common new activity undertaked by HHs in recent years (after planting of new crops/ introducing new animals and producing more embroidery/handicrafts). Similarly, when asked how to attract tourists and increase benefits to the minorities, the group of individuals who mentioned collection and marketing forest products was the third largest, after the cultivation of crops and producing handicrafts and embroidery.

However, it needs to be emphasised that despite the fact that the relative role of forest products has decreased in HHs’ revenue and living of ethnic minority communities, the main reason is related with the Government ban on main forest products and scarcity of its resources. The ratio of HHs’ activities being related to forest resources or products remains considerably high. It can be seen in the following table, showing the selling products of 86/110 surveyed HHs (items four to thirteen are all timber or non-timber forest products and the cumulative sum of all these items shows a high level of forest use).

Table 8: Selling products of surveyed HHs

As was mentioned above, the issue of garbage and wastewater pollution was chosen by Kinh business townspeople and tourists as among the most important environmental issues resulting from tourism. Similarly, 29% HHs interviewed mentioned garbage and litter produced by tourists. As reported, the District authority has planned and is reconstructing the town’s sewage system as well as trying to find better measures for solid waste disposal. However, according to the opinion of Sa Pa townspeople, the pollution so far is concentrated in the town and caused by business activities related with tourism. In comparison with Kinh business people, the tourists themselves pollute the environment less, especially foreign tourists who are considered to be more environmentally friendly.

In general, the impact of tourism on the environment is a crucial issue in sustainable tourism development, on which little research has been done. This is the reason why a separate section in this report has been dedicated to this issue. The impacts of tourism on the forest through the collection of a wide variety of forest products, timber and non-timber, is worthy of further and stronger attention and research in the future.

VIII. ATTITUDES TOWARD TOURISM AND THE ROLE OF ETHNIC MINORITY COMMUNITIES IN TOURISM, AS PERCEIVED BY DIFFERENT STAKEHOLDERS

1) The stakeholders

The total number of foreign tourists interviewed was 28, including 12 females and 16 males, of the ages ranging from 17 to 72. The age distribution was that 39.3% were in the bracket of 17-25 years of age, 46.4% between 26 and 40 years, 10.7% between 41 and 55, and one was 72 years old. They came from 14 different countries (see annex B). Among them, 24/28 (85.7%) came to Sa Pa independently and only 4/28 (14.3%) came on organised tours.

The total number of domestic tourists interviewed was 26, including nine females and 17 males, of ages ranging from 19 to 55. Among them, 15.4% were from 17-25 years of age, 50% in the 26-40 age bracket and 34.6% were in the 41-55 age bracket. Thus, the domestic tourists were slightly more likely to be older than the foreign tourists. There were 11/26 who had come to Sa Pa on an organised tour, conducted mostly by their working organisations. The remaining 15/26 had come individually. Among 26 there were 14 individuals who were coming to Sa Pa for the first time.

The total number of interviewed business people was 29, including one individual of Tµy ethnic minority and 28 Kinh ones, representative of different businesses. Among them there were hotel or guest house owners (nine individuals), restaurants owners (three individuals), guest house combined with restaurant owners (three individuals), shops (one individual), souvenir shops (four individuals), Karaoke and snack bars (two individuals), tour guides (three individuals), and seller of medical herbs (one individual).

Of these 29 business people, 20 have lived in Sa Pa for 20 years or longer, from childhood; two individuals had lived there from 11 to 15 years; five for less than 5 years; and the two remaining had no reply. Most of the Kinh business townspeople had engaged in business in Sa Pa from four to ten years, two individuals for two years, one individual for three years and one had just opened business for four months. This was accorded to the development of tourism in Sa Pa.

2. Tourists opinions of tourism development in Sa Pa and attitudes toward the role of ethnic minority communities in tourism

The points of view presented by different groups interviewed in the assessment of factors attracting tourists to Sa Pa were mentioned earlier. Among those tourists who had come to Sa Pa more than one time, there were 12/12 domestic and 1/4 foreign tourists who considered that there had been changes in the elements attracting tourists to Sa Pa. Besides, there also were three tourists who came to Sa Pa for the first time (2 domestic and one foreigner) and who shared the opinion, when comparing their experience with the information about Sa Pa they obtained before coming to the site. The assessment on the direction of changes is shown in the following (Table 9).

Table 9: The direction of changes of elements attracting tourists to Sa Pa

It can be said that the positive changes that some domestic tourists have expressed all have the characteristics of changes that normally occur during the process of urbanisation. It is the improvement of transport, of services and the architectural styles in the town’s construction.

The negative changes that both domestic and foreign tourists have expressed were related with the worsening of the culture of ethnic minority communities. Of those who replied, 9/12 domestic and 1/1 foreigner shared this point of view and were concerned with the issue of ethnic minority street children and the unhealthy aspects of their interaction with westerners. Some answers complained about having been asked by ethnic minority people for a fee for taking their photos, and others commented on the loss of friendliness and honesty in ethnic minority communities, especially those who were regretting the disappearance of the traditional "love market" event on Saturdays.

Apart from the negative changes occurring with the local culture, 3/12 tourists who were not coming to Sa Pa for the first time, mentioned forest degradation, the worsening of the environment and the visual pollution from construction.

People of all types interviewed, including tourists, both domestic and international, and Kinh business townspeople, have recognised the environmental and social problems that are consequences of Sa Pa tourism. They have a relatively similar negative evaluation of these issues, but the degree of the negative assessment of the majority of the above-mentioned problems presented by Kinh business townspeople were the most negative (see Table 10).

Table 10: Social and environmental problems of Sa Pa as consequences of Tourism

Table 10 above shows that for foreign tourists, western cultural and behavioural influences (57.1%), litter (53.6%) and commercialisation (50%) are the most pressing issues. For domestic tourists, litter ranks highest (69.2%), followed by prostitution (53.6%) and commercialisation (49.8%). For the Kinh business townspeople ,water and waste pollution was the most important issue, followed by prostitution (82.8%) and litter (79.3%).

In general, the Kinh business townspeople group have a more pessimistic point of view to problems which are considered consequences of tourism, which can be explained by the fact that they are able to observe changes over time, on a daily basis. The high rating of problems indicates that several elements of carrying capacity — environmental, physical and social – are issues in Sa Pa. Investigations are needed in this area to try to determine basic threshold or benchmark levels for these three elements, and hence be able to evaluate the importance of impacts more readily.

The issue of drugs was recognised by 42.3% domestic tourists and 65.5% Kinh business townspeople, in contrast to only 10.7% of foreign tourists. This would appear to most likely to be related to cultural differences in the acceptance (and use) of drugs.

Similarly, both domestic tourists and Kinh business townspeople considered prostitution a much more important issue than foreign tourists did. As DiGregorio has pointed out, one possible reason for the difference may simply be due to language. It begs the question whether prostitution currently existing in Sa Pa is targeting/servicing the domestic tourist market rather than the foreign market. The above two results show the need for further research on these two phenomena. Both "social evils" appear to be fuelled by two different segments of the tourism market.

The issue of litter, which is ranked highly by domestic and Kinh business townspeople (and also at a higher level than foreign tourists), is a point of interest when compared to the comparison made between the behaviour of foreign and domestic tourists toward the environment – foreign tourists being considered more environmentally friendly than domestic. By inference then, domestic tourists should be less aware of litter. Again, this is an interesting contradiction that has implications for the success of environmental education and awareness-raising efforts.

A small trend that hints at the difference in the quality of the tourism experience of foreign and domestic tourists is shown by the tendency for foreign tourists to rate beggars, lack of privacy and crowding as issues more frequently than domestic tourists. This would appear to be related to the fourth component of carrying capacity – specifically, psychological carrying capacity which is the level at which the tourist feels their experience is being detrimentally affected by the behaviour or number of other tourists (crowding) and the quality of local conditions. This has already been touched upon in the context of the comments of tour operators and foreign tourists who consider Sa Pa too crowded and ‘developed’.

At the most basic, the domestic tourist and the foreign tourist have different psychological carrying capacities, which will very likely have increasing implications for the future tourism market in Sa Pa. As per the idea put forward by Michael DiGregorio, Sa Pa may become a mountain recreation/resort for domestic tourists, and for a small number of upmarket foreign tourists (who will stay at the self-contained Victoria Hotel). Thus it can be said with some certainty that Sa Pa, after a very short period of time, is already experiencing recreational succession as it rapidly progresses along the ‘tourism life-cycle’.

All groups, including domestic, international and Kinh townsfolk business individuals highly evaluated the role of ethnic minority communities in attracting tourists, considering it the most important reason that tourists come to Sa Pa. However, foreign tourists have a higher ratio than the others do: 22/29 (78.6%) foreign, 10/26 (37%) domestic and 15/28 (51.7%) domestic business people considered it very important.

Table 11: The role of ethnic minority communities in attracting tourists

d) Degree of involvement of ethnic minority communities in tourism

The differences in opinions on the degree of involvement of ethnic minority communities in tourism were relatively small. A 57.7% of domestic tourists considered minority involvement in the tourism industry to be small or minimal; the remaining 42.3% considered it good or considerable. This is compared with 42.9% of foreign tourists who thought the present involvement of ethnic minority communities to be minimal and weak, especially regarding to their income derived from the sector in comparison with Kinh business people working in tourism, 28.5% considered it good, and the same proportion believed it was considerable.

More than half of Kinh business townspeople considered ethnic minority communities involved in tourism passive, under the pressure of food shortages, and their present involvement as being minimal or small (51.8%). The remainder considered it good (29.6%) or substantial (18.5%).

All these three groups had the opinion that if ethnic minority communities can keep their cultures, traditions and originality alive in the process of their participation in tourism, their role will be sustainable and be crucial in the future.

Conversely, regardless of whether their present role is minimal or strong, if they lost their cultural and traditional originality, their role in the future will decline and be taken over by other attractions. However the ratio of foreign tourists who evaluated it as important and sustainable is higher than that of Kinh business townspeople and domestic tourists. It could be explained that the former are more interested in ethnic minority communities and see them as a more important attraction for tourism than the latter. (see Table 12)

Table 12: Evaluation of sustainability of role of ethnic minority communities in tourism

f) Elements hindering ethnic minority involvement in tourism

In evaluating elements hindering involvement of ethnic minority communities in tourism, their education level was selected as the greatest hindrance by all three groups: 93.1% of business people, 92.6% of domestic and 64.3% foreign tourists shared this opinion. Finance is in second place for business individuals (72.4%) and domestic tourists (51.9%), while more international tourists selected policy as their second hindering factor (39.3%). The third most important reason cited by domestic tourists (42.3%) was unfamiliarity with market economy, whereas for Kinh business townspeople, the quality of products ranked third, while for foreigners — finance and language (32.1% for each of them) were equally important in third place.

Competition with other ethnic groups was a more important issue according to domestic tourists and business people (26.8% and 20.7% respectively), than for foreign tourists — 10.7%. For foreign tourists, government policy (39.3%) and discrimination and prejudice (28.6%) were considered more important hindering elements than by domestic tourists (19.2% of domestic tourists considered only prejudice), while no Kinh business townspeople shared this point (see Table 13).

Table 13 - Hindrances in the greater involvement of minorities in tourism

g) Identification of impacts of tourism on ethnic minority communities

The majority of business individuals (88.9%), domestic tourists (92.0%), and foreign tourists (77.8%) said tourism had cultural, social, economical and environmental impacts on ethnic minority communities. Negative cultural impacts have the highest selected ratio of these three groups: 72.4%, 51.9% and 52.4%, respectively. Conversely, economic negative impacts had the lowest: 34.5%, 7.4% and 14.3%. In general, business people had a more pessimistic point of view than the others did. (see annexes A-Q16; C-Q16 and B-Q15)

Most people recognised that there were differences in behaviours toward the environment and ethnic minority communities between domestic and foreign tourists. Among them, 79.3% of business individuals, 61.6% domestic and 42.9% foreign tourists believed that there were differences. The main difference that was mentioned was that Vietnamese tourists are less interested in and less friendly toward ethnic minority communities. 32.7% of Vietnamese tourists and business individuals gave this reason, 17.9% of foreign tourists stated that Vietnamese tourists behaved badly, rudely, and discriminate against ethnic minority communities, while from the Vietnamese tourist point of view, only 3.6% considered that foreign tourists behaved like that. The general opinion on the behaviour of foreign tourists toward ethnic minorities was positive, with the majority of the three groups considering that foreign tourists are friendly and respectful to them.

In regard to how the ethnic minority people are described, the business people considered them uneducated (86.2%), friendly and hard-working (79.3% each) and poor (75.9%). This was followed by honest and dirty (58.6%). Three characteristics were given almost equal weight by domestic tourists – poor, hard-working and friendly (80%). In a similar trend to the business people, domestic tourists had equal amounts considering the ethnic minority communities honest and dirty (53.6%). As mentioned previously, 51.7% of business people considered ethnic minority communities to be commercialised, while only 33.3% domestic thought so.

Friendly, hard-working, and poor were the dominant words used by foreign tourists to describe the ethnic minority communities (89.3%, 64.3% and 60.7% respectively). This was followed by humorous and uneducated at 46.4% for each. Commercialisation was noted by 21.4% of foreign tourists.

It is interesting that, despite the tendency for more foreign tourists to consider Sa Pa too developed or commercial is not used to the same degree to describe the ethnic minority communities. It could be inferred therefore that it is the town of Sa Pa itself which is too developed and commercial, that the development and establishment of commercial enterprises by the Kinh, are to blame, rather than the actions (e.g. selling of crafts in the street) of the ethnic minorities themselves.

3) Attitudes of street-sellers and street children toward tourists

The overall opinion of both foreign and domestic tourists by the street children and street-sellers was that their behaviour was friendly: 92.3% and 84.6% respectively for street-sellers and 95.4% and 86.3% respectively for street children.

The street-sellers and street children differ in their second description. Funny was used to describe domestic tourists by 46.1% of street-sellers, but in contrast 53.8% described foreign tourists as rude, while only 15.2% described them as funny. For street children, 59% thought foreign tourists were funny (followed by generous at 27.2%) and the same 59% though domestic tourists were funny. The street children did not use the word rude.

Of street children, 7/26 liked both foreign and domestic tourists, while 12 liked/preferred foreign tourists compared with only five who preferred domestic tourists. Overall, 10/26 street children preferred female tourists.

The main reason why both street-sellers and street children like tourists is that they represent opportunities to improve their income and their standard of living. It follows that the selling of more products had the highest ratio of importance: approximately three quarters of street-sellers and 84.6% of street children. After this, 10/27 (37%) street-sellers like having their photos taken, 8/27 (29.6%) like receiving gifts and money and 4/27 (14.8%) enjoy having new jobs. The number of street-sellers who are interested in nonmaterial interaction tourists making life more exciting and bringing new ideas is low: 3/27 and 2/27.

In comparison, 16/26 (61.5%) street children believe tourists make life more exciting and interesting; 10/26 (38.5%) like tourists for their gifts and money; 8/26 (30.9%) like tourists as it means they have more money to buy food to eat. The differences in the statistics for the two sections of the minorities reflects the impartial trust and sincerity that the street children have which the street-sellers do not.

Among the characteristics of tourists making ethnic people dislike them, taking photos (mostly without payment) and the way that they bargain were the two largest dislikes about both domestic and foreign tourists (though only a small number of individuals mentioned these).

Thus, both street-sellers and street children like tourists predominantly because of economic reasons (street-sellers indicated a desire to see more tourists come to Sa Pa), though for street children, the non-material aspect of interaction with tourists is more rewarding. It would seem to indicate that the level of cultural interaction between the tourist and local ethnic minority peoples remains low, limited and superficial, and it is only through the street children that any chance of meaningful cultural exchanges are taking place. The vulnerability of these girls has been mentioned before, and the fact that only 53.8% answered with certainty that they had never had trouble with tourists (26.2% or 12 girls did not answer this question) could be cause for concern. However, the girls are currently acting as cultural representatives, bridges between cultures, and this important role should be acknowledged.

As to the question of how the market (‘love market’) has changed, 9/27 (33.3%) street-sellers replied that it was more exciting, 6/27 (22.2%) didn’t know, and 10/27 (37%) did not reply. At the village level, 34.5% of those interviewed responded that the love market had changed and 61.8% did not reply. No one gave reasons for why or how it had changed, nor what the consequences were for changes in this cultural tradition. It is recommended that further in-depth research be done on this topic.

IX. MEASURES FOR INCREASING BENEFITS AND LIMITING NEGATIVE IMPACTS OF TOURISM ON ETHNIC MINORITY COMMUNITIES

As mentioned above, tourism in Sa Pa brings significant benefits for ethnic minority communities. Despite some of its negative impacts, it is likely there are more positive ones. The challenge now is to promote these positive impacts to create more benefits for ethnic minority communities and to put constraints, as much as possible, on the negative effects. Based on the 2-month research, we would like to summarise some of our suggestions regarding directions and specific measures as follows:

1. Production and marketing of embroidered products

The local authorities, at the provincial and district level, have implemented many measures to help them, such as supplying sewing machines and a provision of financial sources for literacy classes. It could be noted that in these classes, the women learn how to read through many useful lessons such as family diet structures, expenditures in family budgets, development of household’s production and earning money. These lessons not only help them to become literate but also give them knowledge on how to take care of and manage family budgets and supply, and family planning as well.

The district has also supplied them with a place for running a shop in the town of Sa Pa, but as mentioned above due to a lack of capital, there is still no equipment for outfitting the shop. Therefore, they need further support to overcome the initial difficult stage and time for testing their products. If successful, it is hoped that it will serve as an example and may be expanded to other communes.

Almost all of the women interviewed said they would like to produce embroidery for sale. According to them, this work is very suitable for their abilities and conditions and all people can take part in production without a large amount of capital investment. Moreover, this work has no negative impact on others.

2. Selling goods in a permanent (fixed location) market / Arranging market place for ethnic minority sellers

As mentioned above, unorganised street selling of products by ethnic minority people has negative effects on the tourists. These effects are also recognised by the sellers themselves. During the discussions with different social groups, held in four selected communes, almost all of the people thought that being street-sellers and beggars to tourists was undesirable and shameful. Even some interviewed street-sellers said that "if we had enough to eat, we would not want to be street-sellers". They thought that the action made tourists look down on them.

All the initiatives showed that the local authorities should seriously implement clear and strict measures to organise all street-sellers to conduct business in a concentrated, fixed area. According to almost all the women interviewed, if such measures were implemented and there were no more street-selling, community members could easily sell their products in the regulated stable area.

However, if street-sellers still remain on the streets, even only one seller, they would not like to sell their products at regulated places because they believe the street-sellers would have more advantages to marketing products than those who stayed at fixed places.

Some women suggested an advertisement to suggest that tourists not purchase goods from street-sellers but from fixed places in market. It is important that, according to them, the sale on the spot helps them to sell and make embroidery at the same time. That saves time for them because as they stated, "If we sell goods along the street, we cannot do anything but run after tourists. We have to work hard and feel ashamed as well."

Being group vendors in a central location, in principle, will make them enjoy their work more while feeling better about it overall. The reasonable organisation of a stable market place for ethnic minority communities, and strict measures adapted to enforce limitations on selling in the streets, may be implemented and are acceptable to most of the people in the community.

Another important matter is the priority of arranging a favourable market place for everyone. There remains an abandoned place behind Sa Pa market, which was rumoured to be planned for building vending stalls for rent. We suggest that the district authority could save it for ethnic minority communities, to build an open market, similar to the one in B¾c Hµ, for them to sell products there. Thanks to its openness, such a kind of market would be convenient for ethnic minority communities and customers to exchange goods. It would also make the existing market more colourful and keep the district of Sa Pa in close touch with the surrounding beautiful nature, reducing one more case of a building destroying the natural scenery which is one of the main attractions of Sa Pa.

The organisation of a fixed market place for ethnic minority communities is not only useful for selling embroidery, jewels and handicraft products, but it will also help them to sell agricultural and forestry products at higher prices. Being asked whether they want to have a stable place to sell agricultural and forestry products, some of them said that without a permanent place to sell, they have to sell fast in order to go home, so the price is always lower than Kinh prices, even lower by half. So this measure would be an active step supporting the minorities, while contributing to poverty alleviation and to the achievement of real equity between Kinh people and Sa Pa ethnic minority communities.

3. Tour guides and mountain-guide training

It is one of the important measures to create conditions for and attract ethnic minority communities to participate in the tourism industry more effectively. Subsequently, their participation as guides is not only a factor to attract tourists (89.3% foreign and 53.6% domestic tourists prefer ethnic minority guides to directly help them understand more about the culture and lifestyles of ethnic minority communities), it also meets their wishes and requirements to participate more in tourism activities (62/110 or 56.4% HHs interviewed said that participation as tour guides should be one of the measures to increase income for their communities).

The training of ethnic minority guides not only has economic significance but also helps them to expand their knowledge if they found some sponsorship. Some of the commune cadres and Youth Union members suggested that some village people who have finished their education to the fourth or fifth grade could attend tourism training courses, including foreign language or other tourist service courses.

This measure also creates conditions to attract present street children, who are used to communicating with foreign tourists, to attain some foreign language skills. It was reported that Sa Pa authorities are paying attention to this measure and have a plan to contact and attract some street children to attend a town school (some of whom may be recruited or forced).

The same holds true for mountain guides; young ethnic minority men need to be trained in order to gain the knowledge, techniques and tourism skills to help tourists climb safely and pleasantly.

To put this idea into practice, funds will be needed. It is likely there are organisations and volunteers who would be ready and willing to assist ethnic minority communities in this first, difficult period of development.

4. Construction of traditional style guesthouses in some hamlets along the main tourists routes.

To meet tourists’ reasonable demands on visiting and staying overnight, ensuring sanitary and individual safety conditions for tourists in villages, with the authority keeping control over tourists activities there, the building of guesthouses in ethnic styles in some villages of Sa Pa is a feasible idea.

The first guesthouses could be very simple, just for tourists to sleep and be served refreshments. Gradually, local people could learn to serve guests with meals and perform cultural activities of ethnic minority communities such as playing the pan-pipe, flute, and trumpet and also singing.

In the opinion of local authority and villagers, it is proposed that guesthouses be built in keeping with the ethnic styles in their villages. There would be no need for great capital investment and the hamlets could organise and manage the business of the guesthouses with the district’s help.

It would also be a measure to expand tourism activities from the town to the villages, and from Kinh people to ethnic minority communities. As a result it would diversify their participation and sources of income in the industry, helping them to increase income and make use of opportunities to integrate into the majority Vietnamese society. They will also have opportunity to expand their viewpoints, knowledge and to develop rapidly.

5. Restoring, protecting and developing traditional culture

As mentioned, one of the cultural activities that was negatively impacted by tourism was the "Love Market", which was traditionally a cultural form of love and social exchange on the weekend market days of the Dao ethnic group. Nowadays it seems to have moved somewhere out of town. The question should be how to recover this traditional cultural activity.

In the interview, some ethnic people said that they feel uncomfortable, shy and lost. According to them, one of the important reasons why the old market has been dissolved has been because of the lack of privacy resulting from the crowded presence of Kinh people and tourists. So if they had an open and convenient place, they might feel more self-confident to come to the market in a dignified position.

On the other hand, it seems necessary to build some simple guesthouses for ethnic minority people with affordable charges to stay overnight easily in the town, during the "weekend market event". In this way, hopefully it contributes to rehabilitating Sa Pa’s market event of ethnic minority communities, in their colourful and meaningful presence.

Unfortunately, it seems the "love market" for young couples will be difficult to restore in the town because the tourist crowds curiously watching will make the young people ashamed or uncomfortable.

However, except for the building of a "Cultural Centre", the difficulty is how to organise these activities so that their performances do not seem to be "staged". The control and ownership of such activities should be with the local people, so that they decide what aspects of their culture can be shared, and what is sacred. Such a cultural activity not only meets tourist demands to enjoy ethnic minority communities' cultural performances, but also increases the role of and the benefit for ethnic minority communities in tourism development schemes in Sa Pa in general.

Another important form of ethnic minority cultural activity that needs to be restored and promoted is festivals: 61.8% HHs interviewed said they would like to promote festivals as tourists attractions.

6. Increasing local food and foodstuff production

The district authority may create favourable conditions and encourage the local, ethnic minority communities to develop agricultural production such as chicken and pig breeding, and especially cows for beef or milk. These resources could supply tourism demands to increase the income and benefits to ethnic minority communities.

Besides animal breeding, the further development of grains and foodstuff crops such as rice, corn, tomatoes, and vegetables may become a strong food resource for tourists in Sa Pa. Presently, tourism food supplies almost exclusively come to Sa Pa from other areas. Sa Pa could take the advantage to develop appropriate agricultural products, suitable to its natural conditions.

7. Street children

As mentioned above, one of the negative impact of tourism on ethnic minority communities which was mentioned first by almost all ethnic minority people interviewed was the issue of street children or H'mong teenage girls in Sa Pa.

For the ethnic people, it is not only the negative phenomenon of reduction in morality when many teenagers girls wander all the day with foreign tourists, but people also actually worry about their future. One of the active measures to restrict this trend, which was implemented by the district authority, is to persuade and assist the young girls to attend classes in district and provincial schools such as the "Usual Educational Centre and Ethnic Minority School".

According to the survey, more than half of street children interviewed said that they would like to be traders, selling goods in the market, or become teachers. Only five of them would prefer to be tailors or farmers, staying in their villages. This somehow shows their close attachment to Sa Pa market and their relatively strong relationship to social community activities.

Assisting the children in their education and training are some of the most useful measures for their futures and will benefit all ethnic minority communities.

Besides, some of these ethnic young women can be selected to be included in the formation of a district performance art group for ethnic cultural activities.

Finally, parents of these children need to be persuaded to better control their children for their own future, allowing them to go to the town selling goods only on the weekend then coming back to sleep at home on other nights. The communes' authority, Women’s and Youth Unions should be in tight co-ordination with heads of hamlets and clans to motivate children and to teach them that commercialisation brings negative impacts.

8. Minimising the impacts of commercialisation on social relations and cultural activities

The last thing that has attracted attention is the minimisation of the negative impacts of commercialisation on social relations and the cultural activities of ethnic minority people. As mentioned earlier, commercialisation has had negative impacts on the social relations and cultures of minorities.

The negative impacts can be mitigated only by strengthening education, such as encouraging the role of heads of clans and villages in the education of traditional ethnic morals. This phenomenon of such commercialisation is the same as occurred with the Vietnamese in the first period of adoption of a market economy. As a result social relations fell under the influence of "monetary terms" and some features of traditional culture were clearly changed.

Thus, activities are needed, in line with the philosophy of "the rich helping the poor", in which communities attempt poverty elimination and the carrying out of awareness-raising activities on the preservation of traditional cultures and lifestyles. Only by methods of regular and focused awareness-raising and education activities, along with good organisation of tourism services, will contributions help minimise negative tourism impacts, maximise positive ones, and help the ethnic minority communities in their development.

X. RECOMMENDATIONS FOR ACHIEVING SUSTAINABLE TOURISM DEVELOPMENT IN SA PA

Besides the above-mentioned proposals, we would like to suggest some recommendations for sustainable development of tourism of Sa Pa:

1. Planning

First of all, in our opinion, there needs to be a good, long-term planning scheme of development for Sa Pa tourism, in which one of the most important things is to keep it in line with the visual natural beauty of the district/town. If the latter is lost, one of the most important factors attracting Sa Pa's tourists will be lost.

Thus, at present, the excessive and unplanned construction of houses and hotels has seriously damaged the beautiful natural landscape. Sa Pa needs to be allowed to have an open-to-nature image, keeping it as close to nature as possible. It could also allow the building of guesthouses and other ‘ethnic’ structures which are becoming more rare in town, as in surrounding communes and villages.

2. Issuing permission for tourists to visit and stay overnight at villages

The local authority should aim to organise issuing permission for tourists to visit and stay overnight in some villages (where they can ensure good control and individual safety for guests), satisfying foreign tourists desires to learn about the life of ethnic minorities.

As the communes or villages do not have guesthouses yet, it is possible to select some, two or three, houses in villages which have conditions meeting at least the standards for tourists to stay overnight. So, in such houses the local authorities can keep control of tourist activities in the village, meeting the demand of tourists, especially foreign ones, while creating opportunities to diversify sources of income generation and extend the participation of the local population in the tourism industry.

The restriction of tourists to travel and stay overnight in the villages likely has reduced the attractiveness of the area for tourists, because the lifestyles and unique cultures of ethnic minority communities is one of the most important reasons that attracts foreigners, and potentially domestic tourists in future, to come to Sa Pa.

The issue of permission should be attached with detailed regulations which officially and clearly explain administrative procedures and fees needed for obtaining permission quickly, saving time for tourists. The system introduced should be oriented toward clearly benefiting the local ethnic communities, e.g. 50% or more of the fees should come back to ethnic communities for their benefit. These receipts could be put into a village development fund, with an annual plan of expenditure agreed on by the village. The expenditures should reflect the benefit of the whole village, e.g. new water supply, child-care establishment, terrace crop improvements, etc. Similarly, the money kept by the district should be directed to specific projects which improve the living conditions of those in the communes.

3. Travel organisation / Tourist management

As we know, Sa Pa's tourism started developing just recently but without any planned direction. Thus the organisation and management of tourism development is only in an early stage and will face many difficulties.

Besides governmental management, a Non-governmental Tourism Association may be established. It could be a gathering of volunteers, including business individuals engaged in the sector, and representatives from NGOs, mass organisations, and communes who are interested in healthy, sustainable tourism development for Sa Pa. Such an organisation could promote efforts, hold discussions on tourism problems and issues, make recommendations and solutions, and ultimately contribute to the good administrative management of Sa Pa and allow for broad community participation in planning and decision making.

According to the survey of the business people involved in tourism, up to 86.2% of them said that it is necessary to establish a Tourism Association where they could discuss organisation and business issues of tourism development. This Association even can itself make efforts to organise transport for tourists, provide them all the necessary information about hotels, guesthouses, restaurants, bars and other tourism services of Sa Pa, information of tours, tourism sites and routes. They could also provide environmental and cultural interpretation information, including a minimum impact code. The Association would need to organise tourism training courses and intensive courses for tour guides. It’s role could be to put the tourism activities of Sa Pa in order, promoting healthy competition in tourism, aimed at maximising the benefits from tourism in an equal basis, while satisfying tourist demands.

There is an obvious need for interpretative information: the research found that 12/25 (48%) foreign tourists and 11/26 (42.3%) of domestic want to have more information about Sa Pa. These foreign tourists not only want to know more about the culture of ethnic minority communities in Sa Pa, but also are interested in history (12/15 or 80%). The foreign tourists are more interested in environmental information than domestic tourists are: 9/15 (60%) compared to 3/11 (27.2%). Meanwhile, domestic tourists are more concern about information on the ethnic community’s religions: 10/11 (90%) as opposed to 9/15 (60%).

4. Opening new tourism sites and entertainment to meet tourists' demand

According to the survey, the Vietnamese tourists said that Sa Pa today only exists as a good place for relaxation and leisure, but that it cannot attract many tourists because it has no places for entertainment. In contrast, foreign tourists expressed the view that Sa Pa is too developed and no longer ‘authentic’.

Due to the differences in reasons for coming to Sa Pa and tourist behaviour between foreign and domestic tourists, it appears to be somewhat difficult to harmoniously build and organise tourism activities in Sa Pa in order to meet the demands of both kinds of tourists.

For the foreigners, the main target is to be close to nature, a clean environment, to walk, climb, visit and learn about the original ethnic minority communities' way of life. Therefore, they would like Sa Pa to be kept in line with nature, avoiding encroachment to or damage of visual natural landscape as much as possible.

Meanwhile, the aim of most Vietnamese tourists to Sa Pa is to rest and be entertained. If for foreigners the maintenance as much as possible of intact natural settings is important for hiking, for Vietnamese, the desire is for more renovations and provisions for entertainment, making tourism activities more comfortable.

At present Sa Pa has a lack of signs and tourism guides along routes to points of interest. So, although a lot of money has been invested in roads and routes leading to tourist sites, the present collection of fees from tourists remains a complaint by most foreign and domestic tourists. They expect more services which help tourists in understanding the sites they visit as well as helping them to be safe. Foreign tourists are not interested in the laying of concrete foot paths, or encroachment of artificial objects in visit sites.

So, besides inter-commune road investment, money should be spent on the improvement of main special tourist routes, combined with the controlled establishment of some entertainment sites. Construction should keep in harmony with the natural surroundings, changing the existing natural scenic landscape as little as possible. In the town, the building of new objects needs now to stop, because too many guesthouses will likely damage the town's last remaining natural landscape.

In this case, the establishment of guesthouses in villages, besides other aims, can also contribute to the redistribution of not only human pressure on nature, but also profits to ethnic minority communities (if these guest house in villages controlled by the latter), helping them to integrate into Vietnam common socio-economic process. This will provide the opportunity for the foreign tourists to experience local ethnic culture. It may be that providing the opportunity for overnight stays is the only way to cater to that market segment.

5. Awareness-raising and educational activities

All players involved in the tourism industry need to be involved in any process of education, including officials, tourists, business people and ethnic minority people (who actively participate in the process as well as other villagers actually or potentially impacted by tourism development).

For tourists, it may educate them to behave more respectfully toward ethnic minorities, respecting their original culture. In addition, they can be made to appreciate the environment. This can be done especially with domestic tourists, by teaching them not to litter using advertisements and panels in town, along tourism routes, sites, or using other tools such as including the information in books and guide-books on Sa Pa tourism.

For business townspeople, their awareness on pollution needs to be raised, as well as on environmental degradation and healthy market competition between themselves and ethnic minority people. Implementation of such an education programme would be based on the different education levels and social interests of these individuals, adapting appropriate techniques and methods, combined with their active involvement and discussion in the voluntary effective self-management of Sa Pa tourism development.

For ethnic minority people, they need to be educated in understanding the tourism industry, its positive and negative aspects, and the need to protect their unique cultural traditions under the impacts of tourism. They need to know how to actively be involved, directly or indirectly, in the sector, to diversify and develop their economy, to raise their income, and to reduce pressure on forest resources, which along with their original culture are the most important attractions for tourists.

6. Some conclusions

In conclusion, we would like to emphasise that the process of attracting ethnic minority communities to take part in and gain profits from tourism activities is very important and necessary. It will be reflected in increasing the income and improving the living standards of ethnic minorities and reducing their pressure on natural resources. Further, it will also improve their knowledge of how to deal with business, widen their understanding of the surrounding world, and create a base for further economic and social development.

It is very important that this involvement is a desire of the ethnic minority communities people themselves, as expressed in group discussions and by most respondents in this survey.