No business has the exclusive right to organize tours and exploit tourism resources at any tourist destination. Even a company or a capitalist corporation that invests in planning and building a tourist area cannot monopolize the organization of tours, but can only benefit from the investment in construction and business organization. Therefore, if the number of tourists is low, it will lead to waste of resources, technical facilities and thus lead to low business efficiency.
- Tourism resources have different exploitation times.
Among tourism resources, there are resources that can be exploited all year round, but there are resources that can only be exploited at certain times of the year, depending mainly on the weather and climate, and this creates seasonality in tourism. For marine resources, the most suitable exploitation time is during the hot weather period of the year; for human resources such as festivals, the time of tourism activities and attracting visitors coincides with the time of the festival. The time of the festival is often associated with religious characteristics, or the characteristics of the formation of those festivals, and spring is the season of festivals with famous festivals such as Huong Pagoda festival, Hung Temple festival (March 10), Lim festival (January 13), Co Loa temple festival (from January 6 to 16), Giong festival, Dong Da festival, etc.
The dry season, with little rain, warm weather and good weather, is a favorable period for many types of tourism. Localities, managers, operators and organizers of tourism service businesses as well as tourists must pay attention to the seasonal nature of tourism in order to proactively and appropriately regulate it to achieve the highest efficiency.
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- Tourism resources are exploited on site to create tourism products.
Unlike other industries that produce goods, after being exploited, resources can be brought to the place where they are processed into products, and then the products must be transported to the place of consumption. As for the tourism industry, tourism resources are exploited in a location that will produce tourism products right at that location, and tourists who want to admire these tourism products must go to the place where the tourism products are. That means the process of exploitation, production and consumption of products takes place simultaneously.
Because tourists have to go to tourist destinations, places with tourism resources and enjoy tourism products, in order to exploit these resources, the first thing to pay attention to is to prepare well the technical facilities, infrastructure, and means of transport for tourists. Reality shows that tourist destinations with favorable geographical locations, convenient traffic routes and good tourism service facilities will have highly effective tourism activities. On the contrary, in tourist destinations with very unique tourism resources such as Tra Co beach (Quang Ninh), Sa Pa town, Bac Ha plateau (Lao Cai) ... because they are located in remote and dangerous locations, they greatly affect the ability to attract tourists. Therefore, if investment in infrastructure and better means of transport for tourists is made, these tourist destinations will certainly develop rapidly in the near future.
- Tourism resources can be used multiple times.
With this characteristic, the resources that create tourism products will serve many different types of tourists in a certain period of time and many times. Tourism resources are classified as renewable resources and can be used for a long time. The main issue is to understand the laws of nature, anticipate the harsh challenges of time and fluctuations and changes caused by humans. From there, there will be long-term orientation and specific measures to reasonably exploit tourism resources, constantly protect, embellish and perfect resources to meet the development needs of tourism.
* Classification of tourism resources
Tourism resources are very diverse and rich, so there are many ways of classification depending on the use of different criteria.
In 1997, the World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) divided tourism resources into 3 types, with 9 groups including: potential supply (3 groups: classic culture, classic nature, movement); current supply (3 groups: transportation, equipment, overall image) and technical resources (3 groups: operational capacity, methods and regional potential).
According to the Vietnam Tourism Law (2017), tourism resources are divided into the following two basic groups:
- Natural tourism resources include geological, topographic, geomorphological, climatic, hydrological, ecological, and natural landscape elements that can be used for tourism purposes.
- Cultural tourism resources include cultural traditions, cultural elements, folk arts, historical, revolutionary, archaeological, architectural relics, creative works of human labor and other tangible and intangible cultural heritages that can be used for tourism purposes.
* River tourism resources
- Natural resources include terrain, climate, rivers, and river landscape ecosystems.
- Human resources include floating market culture on the river, traditional festivals, historical and cultural - revolutionary relics, craft villages with handicraft products, culinary culture, and folk art.
1.1.1.5. Tourism products
Tourism products are services and goods provided to tourists based on exploiting tourism potentials to provide tourists with an enjoyable time, a complete travel experience and satisfaction.
There are many different views on tourism products: according to Michael M. Coltman: "Tourism products are a whole consisting of heterogeneous tangible and intangible components". According to the Vietnam Tourism Law: "Tourism products are a set of services necessary to satisfy the needs of tourists during their trip" (National Assembly, 2017).
Thus, in the most general understanding, tourism products are a combination of many services and material means based on exploiting tourism resources to meet the needs of tourists.
The most common point that tourism products bring to tourists is satisfaction. But it is not the satisfaction like when we buy a certain material goods, the satisfaction here is due to experiencing an interesting time, existing in the memory of tourists when the trip ends. Tourism products are a combination of tourism services and tourism resources. Can be represented by the formula
awake:
Tourism products = Tourism services + Tourism resources Characteristics of tourism products:
- Tourism products are basically non-specific and do not exist in physical form.
Due to its non-specific nature, it is difficult to label the product. Therefore, tourism products are very easy to imitate, specifically, people can copy the set tourism program, see the decoration or a service process that is very elaborately and methodically researched.
- Tourism products aim to satisfy special consumer needs of tourists (need to enjoy beauty, need to learn about cultural values, etc.).
- The tourism products created are often associated with resource factors and cannot be moved.
- The consumption of tourism products takes place at the same time and place as their production.
- Consumption of tourism products is seasonal.
1.1.1.6. Relationship between tourism and other fields
* The relationship between tourism and culture
In the new perception of humanity, culture is understood in a broad sense as everything that humans create and accumulate through the process of practical activities in interaction with the natural and social environment; a system of total material and spiritual, tangible and intangible, static and dynamic values; a creative activity of both spirit and matter, not limited to creative spiritual activities as previously understood.
Culture permeates and spreads everywhere, directly affecting all human activities, becoming the driving force and goal of all social activities as well as economic development, including tourism activities.
If nature is the first cradle that nourishes human beings, then culture is the second cradle, in which the entire spiritual life of human beings is created, nurtured and developed. Many aspirations are formed and satisfied, including the aspiration to find new things, different things in one's daily life. In other words,
Cultural differences are the foundation of tourism. Each ethnic group has differences in dress, speech, living, traveling, rituals, customs, religions, beliefs, etc. The same ethnic group, but in different regions, the nature, structure, and cultural patterns are also different. It is these differences that attract tourism, creating different types of tourism. The longevity of culture, progress and cultural identity along with the existence and development of humanity will determine the development of tourism.
For a place to become a tourist destination, it is most advantageous to have attractive tourism resources, which are used to serve the needs of tourists. For most tourists, it is the attractiveness of the tourist destination that motivates them to travel, not the amenities of the hotel or resort. Only attractive, safe and friendly tourist destinations that meet international standards of hygiene, security and quality can attract tourists, can be successful both in the present and the future, or in other words, can develop sustainably.
Being “built” on culture, development must be based on a cultural foundation, but tourism is not passive but has impacts on culture, developing for cultural purposes, contributing to preserving, embellishing and promoting cultural values. In the development of human history, the social culture of regions, areas, ethnic groups and areas have exchanges, penetration and interaction with each other. Besides the increasing exchange between cultures in the world thanks to the development of transportation, communication, diplomacy and trade, tourism activities promote cultural exchange activities in the most direct and fastest way. Because, on the one hand, the need for tourism is the desire to satisfy the desire to learn about other cultures, urging people to travel to exchange; On the other hand, tourism is a practical human activity, in a broad sense, it belongs to the cultural category, is a high-class cultural activity, appears and ranks after cultural activities that meet people's daily living needs.
It can be said that tourism is a cultural activity with a highly comprehensive and socialized nature. All of its activities pursue or contain a certain type or form of culture. Whether consciously or unconsciously from the side of those working in tourism, culture is
must be consistent throughout all aspects of tourism activities. The main tourism needs include travel, eating, staying, shopping, sightseeing, entertainment, all of which contain cultural characteristics. Eating, staying, traveling, shopping not only meet the needs of normal living but also explore, enjoy, experience; sightseeing and entertainment are typical needs of a tourist trip, which further demonstrate the cultural character. All tourism services and goods that meet these needs are valuable to tourists in that they satisfy the needs to find something new, something different in the place they travel to compared to their usual place of residence, helping tourists find what meets their aspirations towards truth, goodness, and beauty, the three eternal pillars of human cultural development.
In short, culture is the foundation for tourism exploitation and development, but culture must also rely on tourism to promote. That is a fundamental and close correlation, inseparable. As a scholar said: Tourism is a high-level cultural activity of human beings, because culture is the goal that tourism aims at, is the endogenous cause of tourism demand. Regardless of the purpose or method of travel, the ultimate goal is to satisfy one's own needs, to feel and enjoy the material and spiritual values created by humans in a country outside their usual place of residence.
* The relationship between tourism and the environment
Currently, environmental issues have had a great impact on the country's economic development, including the development of the tourism industry. The tourism industry is most affected by climate change, ecological environment, etc. Tourism is a comprehensive economic sector whose existence and development interact with many socio-economic sectors and fields, in which the relationship between tourism and the environment is organically linked: the existence and development of tourism is closely linked to the environment, tourism develops only when the environment is protected.
The rational exploitation, restoration, renovation and regeneration of tourism resources will improve the quality of the tourism environment, increasing the attractiveness of tourist destinations and areas. On the contrary, the unsynchronized exploitation, without measures to restore and regenerate tourism resources will lead to the disruption of ecological balance, causing a decline.
environmental quality, the decline of tourism activities as well as the quality of the tourism environment in that area.
Reality shows that tourism development often comes with negative impacts on the environment. If during the development process, negative impacts on the environment are not listed through effective environmental protection and management measures, the consequences will lead to environmental degradation, directly affecting sustainable tourism development. Therefore, in the process of tourism development, it is necessary to integrate requirements and solutions on environmental protection, right from the planning stage, building development strategies to implementing projects and designing specific tourism products.
Therefore, tourism and environment are two inseparable parts, only when the environment is good can tourism develop sustainably. When developing tourism, the tourism industry itself is also aware of environmental issues. Developing a tourism industry that is attached to nature, friendly to the environment - sustainable tourism is a priority of all countries.
* Types of tourism
Nowadays, society is increasingly developing, people's living standards are increasingly improving, people's travel needs are increasing and depending on each person's purpose, many different types of tourism are formed such as: eco-tourism, river tourism, garden tourism, community tourism, resort tourism, sports tourism, MICE tourism, discovery tourism, spiritual tourism, agricultural tourism.
1.1.2. River tourism
1.1.2.1. Concept of river tourism
In the process of studying a phenomenon, depending on each angle and purpose of the research, people can come up with different concepts. Likewise, to build a complete and unified concept of river tourism is not really simple. However, there have been many researchers talking about river tourism from different perspectives.
From the European perspective: River tourism is a type of tourism in which we use boats and canoes to travel and move on rivers, canals and small streams. Enjoy the beautiful scenery on the river, meet the people living here, talk to them to feel their lives. Learn about the socio-economic background of those countries and the ecological environmental issues that are still related to our daily lives.
According to the authors at Nicolaus Copemicus University, Finnish Institute of Ecology and Geology: “River tourism is part of ecotourism and is linked to the economic inter-zone of that region. Tourism is combined with the protection of the ecological environment on rivers and canals, regulating the flow rate, and at the same time developing the economy along the river banks. Investment in development provides tourism services originating from the social life, landscapes, and culture of the locality” (Agricultural, Food and Environmental Science Newspaper - Finland, 2007).
In summary, through the concepts of researchers, we can draw the following concept: River tourism is a type of tourism in which the organization of tours is not only using means of transportation on the river but mainly serving the activities of entertainment, recreation, eating and resting taking place right on the river, along the river and on the islands, while learning about the cultural life of residents on the river tourism routes. The development of river tourism must be associated with the development of people's lives and the protection of the ecological environment.
1.1.2.2. River tourism route
According to Tran Van Thong: "River tourism routes are routes connecting tourist areas, riverside and onshore tourist attractions, and tourism service providers associated with river traffic routes" (Tran Van Thong, 2006).
River tourism routes are usually short-term routes, from 1 to 2 days. However, there are also long-term routes, combined with visits to neighboring countries based on large regional rivers. Like other tourist routes, river tourism routes must also ensure full factors of attractiveness of tourist attractions, infrastructure, technical facilities for tourism, tourism services, and factors ensuring safety of waterway traffic.