The Impacts of Tourism on Cultural Heritage in Nam Dinh

A country with a long-standing cultural tradition and many cultural heritages will be an attractive destination.

Nam Dinh is a province with rich and diverse tourism resources. With a long history and due to the terrain characteristics of the Red River Delta, Nam Dinh is a locality with diverse tourism potential, with many valuable tourism resources, typically the Tran Temple relic complex, Phu Day .... This diverse tourism potential is one of the important strengths of Nam Dinh tourism compared to some localities in the Red River Delta such as Hung Yen, Thai Binh, Ha Nam ... With the diversity and uniqueness of those resources, Nam Dinh has the basis to develop non-overlapping tourism products not only for the tourism development activities of Nam Dinh itself but also will not overlap with the tourism products of many other localities in the region. This will create a unique tourist attraction for Nam Dinh tourism and this will be an important factor for the development of Nam Dinh tourism in the current context of Vietnam tourism, when the "duplication" of tourism products is a factor that hinders development, limiting the attractiveness of Vietnam tourism in general, tourism of "regions" and localities in particular.

Every year, Nam Dinh attracts thousands of tourists to visit and relax. The majority of tourists come to the province for festivals and historical sites. This shows that cultural heritage plays a significant role in the development of tourism in the province. In recent years, with the attention of all levels and sectors, Nam Dinh has significantly improved its tourism product structure, including cultural and spiritual tourism products. Cultural heritages have truly become a resource for the Nam Dinh tourism industry to exploit, contributing to attracting tourists, diversifying products, increasing choices for visitors, and extending the time of visiting and staying in the province. Relics also participate in the strategy of promoting destinations for Nam Dinh tourism.

At the 9th session of the National Assembly of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, the 10th tenure, the Heritage Law was passed, affirming: " Vietnamese cultural heritage is a valuable asset of the Vietnamese ethnic community and is part of the world's cultural heritage, playing a great role in the cause of building and defending the country of our people". Heritage is evidence of important significance, proving the history that our ancestors have worked hard to preserve.

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Therefore, heritage helps people know their roots, understand more deeply about historical traditions and local cultural characteristics, contributing to perfecting the personality of modern Nam Dinh people, creating a healthy cultural environment to serve tourists.

In addition, cultural heritage also contains great economic values. If these cultural heritages are lost, we will not only lose material assets but also lose extremely valuable spiritual values that cannot be compensated. Physical heritages also have internal significance for economic development. If they are exploited and used properly, and preserved and protected, they will contribute significantly to the economic growth of the province.

1.3.2. The impacts of tourism on cultural heritages in Nam Dinh

Cultural heritage is the main resource of tourism. The natural environment and the cultural and humanistic environment play a particularly important role in tourism because they are the resources, the basic factors to create tourism products, develop tourism types. Nowadays, the trend of eco-tourism, landscape tourism and cultural tourism are becoming the main types of tourism. In which, relics are an important part of tangible cultural heritage and when put into exploitation to serve tourism business, the exploitation value is not exhausted but increases over time. In fact, many relics after being restored have promoted tourism development, bringing many benefits to local residents such as the ancient capital of Hue, the ancient town of Hoi An, My Son Sanctuary. Therefore, heritage conservation has a close relationship with tourism development, not just having a purely cultural meaning. Besides, tourism is also considered a means to revive heritage values and make heritage values more widely known to people.

1.3.2.1 Positive impacts

There is always a dialectical and direct relationship between tourism and culture, this relationship is even more evident in the connection between the protection and promotion of the value of cultural heritage. Tourism is a bridge between the population of different cultures in the world, at the same time creating a direct relationship between the past, present and future of each nation. The development of tourism has a direct impact on the revival and preservation of cultural heritage. Revenue from tourism activities is used

for the restoration of monuments, the adjustment of museums, and the restoration of cultural heritage. Tourism contributes to the revival of monuments.

In a region or a locality, when tourism develops, it will have positive impacts on historical relics and scenic spots of that region or locality. Moreover, tourism creates jobs and improves the lives of a part of the population. Tourism development is the reason for promoting activities to preserve and restore relics, promoting the values of relics to exploit for tourism purposes. When local people are aware of the economic benefits of tourism activities, they will actively participate in relic conservation activities.

In fact, tourism business in Nam Dinh in recent years has had many positive impacts on local cultural heritage such as:

- Tourism activities have attracted a lot of investment capital to the locality, increased local employment opportunities, created more business opportunities for local communities, thereby increasing income, the quality of tourism facilities and services has also been improved thanks to investment projects of the tourism industry. In the period 2006 - 2010 alone, the Central Government supported 94 billion VND to invest in tourism infrastructure. Many projects have been implemented, many routes have been upgraded to better serve tourism such as: the road to the memorial site of the late General Secretary Truong Chinh and the Keo Hanh Thien Pagoda tourist area and festival; infrastructure of the Ben Huu Bi - Bao Loc Temple - Tran Temple - Thap Pagoda - Tuc Mac Cultural Park tourist route; Technical infrastructure of Phu Day complex, Vieng market... In 2011, tourism infrastructure investment projects continued to be implemented with 8 transitional projects and 2 newly started projects, supported by the Central Budget with a total capital of 24 billion VND. In addition to the Central budget, there is also local capital invested in projects to improve the quality of tourism infrastructure to ensure convenience in the travel needs of tourists. In addition, many large-scale, high-quality investment projects to build hotels, motels, and restaurants have been implemented, completed and put into service for tourists.

- Along with improving the quality of tourism services, tourism activities have also contributed to improving and enhancing the quality of life of local residents. Tourism also encourages and motivates national pride and creates motivation for the revival and development of traditional cultural activities (such as developing handicrafts, various types of

performing arts and music). Tourism also helps preserve, embellish and promote the national cultural identity of local people.

- Tourism activities participate in preserving the natural environment, protecting wild animals at relics, helping to improve the local ecological environment; tourism also creates many incentives for localities to restore unique landscapes, thereby changing the appearance of the locality, attracting more and more domestic and foreign tourists.

1.3.2.2. Negative impacts

Along with the positive impacts of tourism on cultural heritages are the negative impacts that tourism activities bring to this subject.

- Most of the profits from local tourism businesses are owned by individuals and organizations outside the locality; prices of many goods and services have increased. At tourist destinations in Nam Dinh such as the historical site of Tran Temple, Phu Day, especially at the Hai Thinh and Quat Lam beach resorts, prices of goods are also higher than in non-tourist destinations. Most of the tourism service providers are private, so of course most of this revenue goes to them, only a small part goes to the local budget.

- Because tourism is seasonal, the number of unemployed people will increase during the low season. This will affect the lives of local residents and create a burden for local authorities. Nam Dinh province is no exception to this rule. During the summer, the number of tourists coming to Thinh Long and Quat Lam beaches increases, causing a large demand for service staff, but after the peak season is over, these staff return to unemployment. The same is true at other tourist destinations, but less so. For example, during the festival season, the number of visitors to Tran Temple and Phu Day Temple increases, causing a high demand for people to serve the festival, so many local residents also join in by looking after vehicles, for example, or selling incense and flowers around the relic area. After the festival, they return to farming, their main job.

- The commercialization of tourism activities will distort heritages and change the traditional culture of the people. Through tourism, local residents are exposed to many new cultures, thereby stimulating local people to learn how to behave.

of tourists leads to a state of distancing or even abandoning traditional cultural values. In the process of tourism development, many local customs, practices, festivals, and traditional occupations are commercialized to meet the needs of tourists, thereby leading to the gradual loss of the characteristics of the traditional culture of the locality.

Tourism also brings with it many types of social evils such as crime, drug addiction, prostitution, alcohol, smuggling... When the number of tourists entering the locality increases, it means that the conflict between the local community and tourists becomes more intense. If tourists are provided with information at the tourist destination by non-professional guides, without basic knowledge, not understanding the local culture... they are very likely to have incorrect information about cultural heritage, which erodes the cultural value of the nation or there are tourists who know that the information is given incorrectly, causing discomfort, distrust and leading to serious consequences such as lack of respect for that tour guide, the management board of the place that provided this tour guide or when they have the opportunity to return to that tourist destination, they will lose inspiration and will find another tourist destination.

Theft, drinking, and gambling still occur frequently in many festivals not only in Nam Dinh but also in many other localities. Tourists coming to Nam Dinh are very diverse and rich, so meeting the needs of tourists is not easy, so sometimes quarrels and clashes between local residents and tourists are inevitable. Nam Dinh has many tourist attractions, but the issuance of tour guide cards at these tourist attractions is limited. The tour guide team is young, inexperienced, and has a poor understanding of local traditional culture, so sometimes tourists are not satisfied with the information they receive.

- The preservation and restoration of relics and tourist service facilities will affect the local natural environment and landscape. Leveling the ground and constructing new works will cause pollution of water, air, noise, solid waste and land; when the tourist space expands, it also means that the space of traditional economic sectors in the locality is narrowed or eliminated. In addition, tourism development will cause the degradation of local tourism resources. If not

If the conservation and preservation of tourists and local residents does not continue, one day the locality will no longer have resources to attract visitors.

Over the years, with the attention of all levels of government and local residents who have successfully worked far away and returned to their hometowns to repay their kindness, many construction projects to serve tourism have been carried out. In addition to bringing more convenience to the Nam Dinh tourism industry, they have also brought many consequences. For example, some roads have been expanded to serve the travel of tourists during festivals, causing many difficulties for residents such as the narrowing of farming land, housing, and daily life being affected due to the prolonged construction...

1.3.3. The urgency of researching cultural heritage conservation in Nam Dinh tourism development.

In the general trend not only of Nam Dinh tourism but also of the entire Vietnamese tourism industry in developing heritage tourism has brought many advantages to the tourism industry. Research on preserving cultural heritage is not only of archaeological significance, but it also has socio-economic functions. Preservation is not about keeping artifacts and heritage in glass cases, making them unfamiliar to human life, but it needs to promote aesthetic, historical, cultural values... for present and future society.

Therefore, it is necessary to consider the conservation of cultural heritage as a factor of economic development, making official decisions on the conservation, use and reuse of cultural heritage as a core part of policies linking social, environmental, cultural, educational and local development plans. Besides, the conservation of cultural heritage is also an essential factor in tourism activities, the subject of the provincial tourism industry, an important part in changing the economic structure of the province, it must be exploited to become a tourism product. The attention to conservation also helps to use resources economically, to appreciate it, to create favorable conditions to promote trade and tourism development.

Recognizing the importance of preserving local cultural heritage, Nam Dinh province has also proposed many solutions towards sustainable tourism development. Preserving local cultural heritage is always associated with environmental protection, helping to retain the attractiveness of town and city landscapes, retaining

unique traditional cultural beauty. In order for conservation to take place regularly, Nam Dinh province also pays great attention to providing the best policies for the construction of planning projects, urban renewal policies...

Chapter 1 Summary

Currently, the issue of preserving and promoting the values of cultural heritage is considered an important and urgent task of the whole society in general and of Nam Dinh province in particular. Because cultural heritage is not only an extremely valuable asset of humanity, bringing to the ethnic community a huge amount of knowledge about the national culture of the country but also an important resource for tourism development.

The issue of exploiting the value of cultural heritage to serve tourism development and developing tourism to preserve cultural heritage are two activities that always go hand in hand and are linked together. To ensure that these two activities are good, the preservation of cultural heritage must comply with the established principles, ensure the harmony of interests of the parties involved, encourage social components, tourism businesses, and local communities to participate in this preservation work. In addition, it is necessary to regularly raise public awareness in preserving cultural heritage, and be aware of their responsibility in protecting and preserving the extremely valuable common assets of the nation in general and of the locality in particular.

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