Solutions to Promote Business Participation in Sustainable Tourism Development in Ho Chi Minh City

In normal tourism, customers often accept higher prices for high quality service that meets international standards.

- Develop some different types of tourism that the city has strengths in to attract tourists such as: culinary tourism, discovery tourism, tourism combined with medical treatment, sightseeing tourism... at the same time, connect Ho Chi Minh City tourism with tours to neighboring regions such as the Mekong Delta, the Southeast region, the South Central region, to increase the attractiveness for tourists when coming to Ho Chi Minh City. However, to effectively implement the product differentiation strategy, tourism businesses need to pay attention to some issues such as:

- Have a regular plan to upgrade and build new facilities and equip machinery and materials, improve staff service skills to keep up with customer tastes and the development level of the region and the world.

- In the current conditions of increasingly developed means of communication and the world is changing rapidly, customer needs are also constantly changing, tourists do not want to be bored so they always tend to change in consumption or in other words, find alternative products. Therefore, to maintain and compete well, tourism businesses need to be pioneers in finding new things, must be sensitive to detect the competitive advantages of their business, to promote those strengths to respond to market changes in the best way.

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- Properly evaluate the city's tourism products to have directions for improvement to make tourism products more attractive. Continuously improve the quality of tourism products, create factors to attract domestic and foreign tourists by exploiting all the potential of Vietnamese people.

- Survey tours, routes, and build products to establish specialized, highly attractive tourism programs, create unique tourism products that are difficult to replace, and keep the city's tourism industry in increasingly favorable conditions to attract more tourists.

- Besides, it is necessary to develop traditional craft villages combined with modern elements, promote cultural values and national identity, and enhance the unique beauty.

uniqueness of the product. Focus on exploiting festival activities, new folk games to serve tourism activities. Find every way to extend the length of stay for tourists due to the diversity of products, develop the souvenir and handicraft industry.

By doing so, Ho Chi Minh City will have a sustainable and quality tourism strategy/plan that meets the city's tourism development needs. Not only that, if done well, Ho Chi Minh City will be the first unit, a model for localities in building strategies and planning for tourism development.

3.2.3. Solutions to promote business participation in sustainable tourism development in Ho Chi Minh City

Protecting cultural heritage and the environment are two important pillars of sustainable tourism development. If these two pillars are not maintained, sustainable tourism cannot be achieved. In relation to maintaining these two pillars, it is necessary to consider the roles and responsibilities of relevant parties. Including businesses.

Enterprises play an important role, as a bridge between destinations and tourists. The activities of travel businesses contribute to providing information about destinations to tourists, have a great influence on tourists' choice of destinations and coordinate with many other parties such as restaurants, hotels, attractions, and entertainment to create tourism product packages to meet tourists' needs. The activities of travel businesses not only affect communication to attract tourists, contributing to meeting the high needs of tourists, but are also related to activities to protect natural resources, preserve culture, preserve the environment... to implement sustainable tourism development (Ho Ky Minh et al., 2017).

Research shows that the activities that have been carried out by most businesses are designing tours suitable for each group of tourists; training tour guides and staff who come into contact with tourists with basic knowledge about the city's scenic spots and the value of preserving them; encouraging tour guides to regularly develop their professional skills such as participating in training courses, seminars... by experts or reputable organizations.

It can be seen that these are activities directly related to their business performance. On the other hand, these activities also contribute to ensuring sustainable tourism development because it will increase the level of satisfaction of tourists.

However, the results also show that the activities of enterprises that affect environmental, cultural and social standards for sustainable tourism development have not been implemented by many enterprises, and many enterprises have not thought about or are not interested in them. For example, activities such as actively sponsoring programs to raise people's awareness of ecological conservation; actively supporting materially and financially the restoration of places negatively affected by tourists; using local people in some activities and paying them fairly are only implemented by a small percentage of enterprises; at the same time, a very low percentage are not aware of, and some do not care about, their responsibilities in sustainable tourism development.

In other words, businesses operating in the tourism sector need to demonstrate their responsibility for these two issues, but in reality, businesses seem to be outsiders. They pay money to bring tourists to visit, which is what they do. Therefore, there must be appropriate measures and methods for businesses to fulfill their responsibility for preserving cultural heritage and the environment in their operations. Accordingly, in the coming time, the state needs to do:

- Establish a fund to protect cultural heritage and the environment in tourist areas. Businesses are responsible for contributing to this fund when they come to exploit destinations. This fund is used for the purpose of restoring and embellishing relics and protecting the environment. Regarding the Fund, the government, specifically Ho Chi Minh City, needs to issue regulations related to the management and use of the fund in a public, transparent and specific manner. Another issue related to the fund to protect cultural heritage and the environment is the effective, public and transparent management of the fund. The city government needs to issue appropriate regulations and mechanisms for managing the fund, with the participation of businesses and the community.

- Develop and issue a series of sustainable tourism criteria for restaurants, hotels, travel companies, tour operators, etc. These sustainable tourism criteria need to detail the standards on the environment, protection and respect for cultural heritage, use of energy, natural resources, etc. These standards are the basis for ranking and also the basis for checking the activities of businesses related to tourism business and exploitation. When having a set of criteria, the City needs to organize propaganda sessions and meetings for businesses to disseminate the issued set of criteria. At the same time, the City must also disseminate the application and operation methods of that set of criteria. The City also needs to propose a way to organize control and check the implementation of that set of criteria.

- Support tourism businesses in organizing green, environmentally friendly and sustainable tourism activities. These activities not only contribute to promoting tourism but also guide tourism businesses to develop tourism in a sustainable direction. Ho Chi Minh City can choose some of the following forms of support:

Firstly , support for fees (entrance tickets), for green tourist destinations, businesses that are certified as green tourism companies (tourism companies that contribute and dedicate themselves to sustainable tourism such as implementing green tourism criteria well, contributing to the cultural heritage conservation fund, etc.) will receive reduced entrance fees or other priorities.

Second , procedural support. Enterprises that have made positive contributions to environmental protection and heritage activities in sustainable tourism development will be given priority to resolve administrative procedures faster, such as procedures for granting tourism practice certificates to employees of that company, or procedures for granting licenses to operate tourist transport vehicles.

Third , the state can support these businesses in the process of training employees, and connecting to develop tourism, helping these companies to effectively connect with other businesses and other localities in the process of developing sustainable tourism.

- Raising awareness of all employees towards sustainable tourism development: Travel businesses, first of all managers and tour guides, need to be aware of sustainable tourism development. Because, through this group of people, they will provide basic knowledge to employees in the business as well as directly guide tourists' behavior to raise awareness of environmental protection, while providing tourists with information about history, culture, and local customs to help them ensure their behavior and respect for local culture.

- The State needs to call on businesses to take practical actions to contribute to achieving the criteria for sustainable tourism development. Fund and build awareness programs for residents and tourists about environmental protection and sustainable tourism development. Actively support material and financial support for the restoration of places negatively affected by tourists for conservation activities and for the needs of the city. Build tours that bring both high economic benefits and educational value such as eco-tourism and cultural tourism.

- The State needs to encourage and further promote the proactiveness and cooperation with relevant organizations as well as other business units in tourism activities to best meet the needs of tourists, bringing tourists the best tourism products at the lowest possible cost. The results of this cooperation will contribute to ensuring sustainable tourism development from an economic perspective.

- Increase business understanding of sustainable tourism development. To increase business understanding of sustainable tourism development in Ho Chi Minh City, the state needs to provide understanding and perspectives on sustainable tourism development to tourism businesses through a number of forms. The first form is that the state needs to set out specific criteria for sustainable tourism development. These criteria play a guiding role in sustainable tourism activities in the city. Through the application of these criteria to the actual operations of businesses, businesses will better understand sustainable tourism development, as well as see more of their responsibility in sustainable tourism development. Not only that,

This can be done through courses and seminars or organizing field trips to directly guide individuals and organizations involved to fully understand and adjust their behavior towards a sustainable tourism industry. In addition, the state needs to strengthen propaganda and raise awareness of businesses about protecting resources and the environment. Another solution that the state also needs to pay attention to is to attract people's participation in local tourism activities, considering this as an important channel of control and supervision for companies operating in the tourism sector.

- The State supports travel businesses in carrying out activities to achieve the goal of sustainable tourism development. Regularly conduct customer research surveys to help businesses have information to make reasonable decisions. Allow businesses to calculate a reasonable proportion of costs into the cost of tourism products to form a sustainable tourism development fund, used for the conservation and development of tourism environmental resources. Establish a bridge to create cooperation for businesses through promoting the role of the Tourism Association to create an environment for exchanging information and management experience and contribute to creating unity, avoiding unhealthy competition between tourism businesses in the area. Organizing seminars and exhibitions on tourism helps tourism businesses establish bridges for future cooperation.

- Issue regulations to ensure that businesses carry out activities towards sustainable tourism development. It is necessary to set out specific programs and measures so that tourism businesses can make more positive contributions to the city's tourism industry. Develop regulations on protecting tourism resources and environment as a mandatory condition in tourism activities. These regulations must include specific responsibilities for subjects participating in tourism activities from the tourism industry to businesses, tourists and local communities. Strengthen supervision of businesses in implementing regulations of state management agencies on activities affecting sustainable tourism development. Besides, it is necessary to strengthen the management of state agencies in inspection and supervision.

activities of tourism businesses to limit activities contrary to registered licenses, improve the quality of tourism services.

3.2.4. Solutions to promote community participation in sustainable tourism development in Ho Chi Minh City

Playing an important role in sustainable tourism development, the local community is considered the subject that brings soul to tourism products, especially cultural values used in tourism activities (Tran Minh Thang, 2016). However, the participation of the local community in tourism development in Ho Chi Minh City is very limited.

Citizen participation, according to Thomas Ehrlich – Consulting Professor at Stanford University, means “making a difference in the civic life of the community, developing a combination of knowledge, skills, values and motivations”. This concept raises two important issues. Citizen participation must directly impact the quality of civic life in the community. The quality of civic life refers to the rights and equality of citizens in all aspects of economic, social and political life. Not only that, citizen participation must also aim to improve and develop the internal strength of the people including knowledge, skills, values and motivations. Thomas Ehrlich further explains that citizen participation is based on the ethical foundation and responsibility of a citizen with the purpose of expressing his or her individuality in the community. Accordingly, community issues are considered part of the people when they practice the so-called “citizen participation”.

Citizen participation promotes the formation and development of civil society. Conversely, a strong civil society is the foundation for strengthening and promoting citizen participation.

Based on such importance, in the coming time, it is necessary to further promote their participation according to the following solutions:

Firstly , solutions to raise community awareness of sustainable tourism development, including awareness of conservation and value of historical relics in the locality.

Community awareness is the community's understanding of the value and role of relics in national history. Community awareness is also the desire to learn about, protect and restore relics for the long-term existence of relics for future generations (Tran Minh Thang, 2016).

- To do this, it is necessary to first invest in creating publications introducing tourism, especially tourist destinations with relics, with specific and detailed information about that tourist destination. These publications are conditions to help people read and understand more about the relics exploited and used in tourism. From understanding, people's awareness of sustainable tourism development will be enhanced. This is a condition to create long-term participation of people in sustainable tourism development.

- Not only that, the content of sustainable tourism development also needs to be conveyed in forms that are close to the people so that people have the opportunity to read and understand about sustainable development. People in many localities have limited education, so the content related to sustainable tourism needs to be presented in a simple, easy-to-understand but vivid way.

- The third form is to propagate and popularize to the people about sustainable tourism development, emphasizing their rights and responsibilities towards sustainable tourism so that people understand and have the basis and conditions to exercise their rights and obligations. These forms of propaganda need to be effective and substantial, avoiding ineffective propaganda campaigns.

“In reality, the propaganda work about relics is not effective because the propaganda content is not attractive, the propaganda form is not attractive. This has made many people, even those in the relic management board, not fully understand the value of the small details of the relic. This has created indifference among people towards the relic. Many people even unintentionally encroach on the relic without knowing it. There are some people who carelessly take floor tiles and roof tiles from the relic to fill in the hollows in their houses without knowing that each tile and roof tile sometimes carries an invaluable value in terms of history, culture and architectural art. There are relics where the management agency carelessly replaces the tile roof with a corrugated iron roof to prevent leaks. For them, that is the right action to preserve the relic.

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