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examines different types of community participation in tourism development.
Accordingly, there are 5 types of community participation. These include active
participation, passive participation, consultation, participation in
information provision, participation in the implementation of tourism
development functions. Tosun studies the barriers in which people participating
in tourism development activities. In this study, people will be affected by
three groups of barriers when deciding to participate, which are operational
barriers, cultural barriers and structural barriers. Latkova studies the
attitudes of people when participating in tourism [1]. This study identifies
factors that influence people's participation decisions. Accordingly, there are
3 groups of influencing factors: (1) People's perception of tourism, (2) The
role of barriers when participating in tourism, (3) Personal benefits received
from travel. Nguyen Viet Ha undertakes research with the aim of understanding
the effect of local people's perceptions on willingness to participate in
volunteer tourism in Sapa, Lao Cai, Vietnam. The research has built 4
hypotheses and proved that all 4 research hypotheses are accepted through
multivariate regression model under the support of SPSS 19.0 software. Bui Thi
Thu Van performed researches on people's awareness and participation in tourism
development. This study used Pearson's correlation to see the relationship
between consciousness and people's participation. Accordingly, after conducting
the investigation and processing the data, the results obtained is that there
is a positive relationship between awareness and participation.
Nguyen
Thi My Hanh conducted research on local community participation in mountainous
tourism development, a typical case in Sapa, Lao Cai [2]. Accordingly, the
theory of social exchange is used to clearly see the factors affecting people's
intention to participate. The results show that the perception of factors
affecting both positively and negatively influences on people's participation.
Besides, the new factor is the added experience when joining tourism is a new
variable proven to influence the decision to participate in tourism in the
future. Kumar and Sekhar conclude that the use of technology has evolved the
way that rural tourism could be conducted [3]. Furthermore, it has opened up
ways to use rural tourism as a means to solve existing socio-economic
challenges in society. An and Alarcon confirmed that efforts to understand
sustainable rural tourism from the customer perspective have been increased
since customer loyalty is considered important for sustainability [4]. This
study is significant in that, since it evaluated the knowledge status for the
first time through systematic review and applied content analysis to academic
literature related to sustainability in the sector of rural tourism, it can
expand and deepen the knowledge and understanding of related topics and raise
awareness of a new research direction.
Research
Methods
Research
sample
Based
on the research object, time and objective of the study, the author conducts a
survey at tourist destinations with rural tourism development conditions in Bac
Kan province according to the list of suitable sites for development. Rural
tourism is based on the research results of “Vietnam rural tourism development
practical handbook”. Sites that have been researched and proven to have rural
tourism activities include: Pac Ngoi village; Coc Toc village; Nam Dai village
and Bo Lu village.
For
managers: For each village, the author chooses 5 managers, so the number of
questionnaires is: 4 * 5 = 20 managers.
For
residents, the total number of the population in the province that practice
rural tourism in Bac Kan as of the end of 2019 is 57 households. Therefore, the
author will use the overall survey method to collect information on the
participation of households in rural tourism development in Bac Kan province.
Analytical
model: The regression model used to analyze the factors affecting the
participation of people in rural tourism development has the following form:
Y =
+
+
X2 +
+
+
[1]
+
Dependent variable (Y): People's participation
+
Independent variables (X) include:
X1:
Benefit
X2:
Barriers
X3:
People's opinion
X4:
State policy
Current
situation of participation in rural tourism development in Bac Kan province
Situation
of people's participation in rural tourism development in Bac Kan province
The
following research results show a relative assessment of the research subjects’
people on the level of people's participation in activities related to rural
tourism development. Accordingly, the results were implemented with 57 people
and 40 management staff participating in rural tourism development activities
in the area.
·
Participate in planning process
The
analyzed results in Table 1 show that there is a difference in the assessment
between the different surveyed subjects (Table 1). If the people show a high
level of agreement on the contents of the planning process in which they
participate, the management staff, particularly the village leaders and the
socio-cultural staff of Communes showed lower levels of consent. Accordingly,
from the point of view of local residents, they assessed that they have the
highest participation in the concept of rural tourism development in the area
and that they have participated in data collection. Rural tourism is considered
to be the lowest level by the people. Meanwhile, from views of managers, they
appreciate the role of people in participating in the stages of proposing rural
tourism development ideas; so, they set rural tourism development goals and
targets and develop implementation plans, although the level of consent is
generally not as high as that of the people as analyzed above.
·
Participate in the process of building an
organizational structure
With
content participating in the process of building the organizational structure,
the research results show that the level of consent on the participation
content of the people is not high when the opinions are not yet 50% of the
respondent’s agreement. Accordingly, both the management staff and the people
have low assessment of the organization's process of setting up operating
regulations. This can be explained by the reason that the people's education
level is not high, leading to important jobs that require thinking and
involving many people, people are not able to participate (Table 2).
·
. Participate in the design
process of tourism products and services
The
design process of rural tourism products is shown through the contents in
(Table 3). The content of visiting and learning the model of rural tourism
development in localities at home and abroad has not been appreciated by both
the people and the management staff because of the real development of
different types of tourism. in general, and rural tourism in particular in the
research areas of Bac Kan province have not been highly appreciated by the
local authorities and policy makers and the funding for this activity has not
been widely allocated.
·
Participate in the process of receiving
visitors
Among
the contents in which people participate in rural tourism development, the
visitor welcoming process is directly related and associated with the
relationships between other stakeholders in the local community. This means
that the best possible reception of tourists requires a close coordination
between the parties, namely local authorities, tourism service providers,
industry agencies and people - subjects standing at a central role in the
connection. Because of that importance, both the people and the management
staff appreciate and show a high agreement with this content. In particular,
the stage of providing information about tours, tourist destinations for
tourists and designing tourism products specific to regions was rated highest
by both participants. In addition, there is more expectation on the
participation of people in creating a safe and hygienic accommodation
environment to serve tourists because this is an important highlight to attract
the locality (Table 4).
·
Participate in tourism promotion
The
study shows that the promotion of rural tourism, although interested by the
people and government officials, is not really appreciated. Mainly, people only
participate in promoting rural tourism services through rural tourism products
and services associated with famous regional specialties such as Tay people,
... or from rural places that are well-known. The modern and more active
activities such as promoting rural tourism services through the media
(Internet, newspapers, radio, ...) are not really interested in people and
authorities (Table 5).
·
Participate in tourism control and
management
Activities
covered here including organizational structure building; tourism promotion, as
well as tourism control & management have been participated by local
people, but the level of interest and appreciation are not high for both
residents and managers. Table 6 shows that only the content proposing solutions
to attract local visitors in the future is of much interest to the people and
officials (Table 6). However, the remaining issues addressing developing
strategies to control and manage rural tourism in the future have not been
mentioned and concerned. A stable and sustainable development of this type of
tourism can help reduce poverty, improve income and living standards of the
local; however, a long-term strategy is difficult to formulate.
In
addition, the results also show a comparison of the level of participation in
rural tourism development among research subjects. Accordingly, the assessment
of people about their own participation is higher than that of managers. This
indicates that there is a difference in the perception and assessment between
the two subjects by education level, subjective perspective as well as opinions
in general.
Level
of participation in rural tourism development process
The
participation level is shown under two aspects: passive participation and
active participation. The first two levels in the table are defined by the
author as passive participation whereas the remaining four levels are
generalized as active participation. Accordingly, the contents of planning,
designing tourism products, services and receiving visitors are aspects in
which people actively take part in. However, in terms of building the
organizational structure; promotion and control & management, the local has
passively merge themselves into the process and only do such things under the
steering of the authorities and receive announcement from the authorities once
the work has been completed (Table 7).
Analysis
of factors affecting the participation of people in rural tourism development
in Bac Kan province
According
to the multivariate regression results table, it appears that there are 4
factors that have a linear relationship with the participation of people in
rural tourism development with a significant level. <5% (P - value
<0.005) includes the benefits, barriers, views and policies of the State.
This means that we have a basis to reject the hypothesis H0 that there is no
linear relationship between Benefit (hypothesis 1), Barrier (hypothesis 2),
Viewpoint (hypothesis 3) and State policies (hypothesis 4) with the
participation of people in rural tourism development; accept H1 (alternative
hypothesis) - there is a positive relationship between these factors with
people's participation in rural tourism development. Considering the
standardized Beta values, we see that the variables of interests, views and
policies of the State are all greater than 0, which means that the variables
have a positive influence on participation in tourism development. In rural
areas, the barrier variable has a negative impact on participation in rural
tourism development in Bac Kan province (Table 8).