The Role of Stakeholder Partnerships in Rural Tourism Development

Motivation for cooperation: When interviewed about the motivation for participating in cooperation, the answers received were mostly for economic benefits, personal benefits and sharing resources. When interviewing the gong group leaders, who are also representatives of the tourism industry, the answers focused mainly on sharing family and clan benefits. The interaction between them helps them bond and understand each other better. Therefore, they can support each other not only in serving tourists but also in daily life. For members participating in the cooperative group, the main motivation for participating is for the purpose of benefit, improving livelihoods, and improving material and spiritual life. As for the parties in Lam Ha district participating in the cooperation, the majority of the answers were to participate to improve economic benefits for themselves and their families. This economic benefit factor is also the goal and motivation for members to participate in cooperation with the desire to improve their livelihoods and is explained more clearly in the content of factors affecting the relationship between cooperatives and social organizations in PTDLNT.

Forms, contents and mechanisms of cooperation in the research area

The results of fieldwork and interviews at the research site identified the following forms and contents of cooperation:

Network cooperation: expressed in the form of project cooperation (strengthening community capacity for community-based ecotourism development) and gong group cooperation (community tourism)

Maybe you are interested!

1) Gong group cooperation: According to the representative of the town's local government, there are currently 10 active gong groups in Lac Duong. When interviewing the leaders of the gong groups here, we found that each group has 20-30 members. Each member will be responsible for a task of the group as assigned. Gong group cooperation is based on trust, community cohesion, and mutual relationships. Among these gong groups, there are groups that have been operating and maintained for nearly 20 years on the basis of inheritance and development. In general, community tourism in Lac Duong depends fundamentally on the activities of the groups and the cooperation network created by the group leader. Previously, community cultural activities in Lac Duong were very developed, but now due to many factors, these activities have decreased in number, so the Central Highlands gong groups operate with the support of the local government as a way to preserve and promote indigenous cultural values, while providing material and spiritual resources to the community. The groups were established on the basis of a few pioneers in preserving indigenous culture in the face of the risk of cultural values being lost, while also serving tourists to experience. The group leaders play the role of the main subject in building the HTCBLQ network:

Previously, together with Mr. Lieng Mut, we preserved the local indigenous culture, when the old Lat commune had not yet been separated from the town... People who were passionate about folk music and dance, and had close relatives in the village. After a while, when the previous generation retired, the next generation approached the passionate children to participate, some of them could play gongs. (Head of gong group, male, 52 years old, Lac Duong).

According to interviews and observations of gong groups, the group leader established the gong groups and the groups operated as small tourism enterprises, with a mechanism of sharing benefits, open communication, preserving and promoting indigenous cultural values. Since then, thanks to tourism, many farmers have established small tourism enterprises or business households. Group members are family members, relatives, close friends and form a very tight network.

One sells drinks, one is in charge of food, one daughter is a singer, one son is in charge of music. (Gong group leader, female, 58 years old, Lac Duong).

2) Project-based cooperation: The official form of cooperation through the project includes JICA, WWF, and a research project on agricultural tourism in the vicinity of Da Lat, Lam Dong, conducted by researchers from Da Lat University. This is a form of cooperation between diverse stakeholders. However, for the WWF project, the number of on-site participants is only one person, who is also a member of JICA, so the connection is mainly with members outside the locality, so it will be integrated into the interview process. Project participants include those seconded to JICA, representatives of agencies and departments, and local communities (including indigenous people living in villages in the buffer zone of the Langbian World Biosphere Reserve). In 2010, the content of project-based cooperation

― Strengthening community-based management capacity for Bidoup Nui Ba National Park ‖ officially came into operation with the goal of improving community livelihoods and community-based ecotourism to promote business cooperation, attract tourists, improve the lives and awareness of local communities about forest protection. The project ended in 2013. Or it can be said that the JICA project plays an important role in overcoming the limitations of community participation by promoting HTCBLQ. Accordingly, JICA connects with stakeholders to support the management of tourism resources. Through this phase of the project, when interviewing representatives of some local people, we received information about HTCBLQ in the JICA project on agriculture:

Currently, the members of the residential group have many groups: Vegetable and coffee production groups, but in the area, there are 70 households participating in JICA, especially sharing the benefits of JICA. For example, fertilizer, self-created funds, the residential group mobilizes loans to operate effectively, fairly and practically, suitable to the conditions of the people. (CC group leader, male, 52 years old, Lac Duong).

JICA has brought practical benefits to local people through supporting the establishment of operating funds, providing loans and fertilizers to help farmers reduce difficulties in investing in agricultural production. Furthermore, commenting on the initial difficulties in implementing the JICA project, the head of the gong group also added that the impact of people on the forest environment has been significantly reduced, which has demonstrated the sense of responsibility and perseverance of JICA members in mobilizing people to raise awareness about forest environment protection:

Initially, there were difficulties in implementation, but after implementation, people became aware of the issue of protecting the ecological environment, especially protecting the forest. The impact on the forest has been significantly reduced, which is a good thing . (Head of the gong group, male, 52 years old, Lac Duong).

JICA's operating mechanism is to divide into small groups to ensure good interaction on the basis of equal discussion with debate to find highly effective solutions:

… discuss and debate before reaching an agreement… Each person will have strengths in many different fields, complementing each other to perfect and present arguments to defend their point of view. If another point of view is better, it should be supplemented. Knowledge is actually borrowed from each other, learned from each other… Linking to create highly effective products, ideas, and content. (Representative of the Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism, JICA member, male, 43 years old, Da Lat).

Through project cooperation, we have seen clear results, which are helping people raise awareness about forest protection, protecting the living environment, increasing sustainable livelihoods and supporting people with tourism skills.

For tourism researchers, through the PTDL project, many tourism experts, tourism enterprises, local guides, local authorities, gardeners in Da Lat and surrounding areas have been connected to establish agricultural tourism models. The research results have practical value in the context of Lam Dong, not only helping to raise awareness of the role of agricultural tourism models in local economic development but also helping to effectively deploy and operate the models. At the same time, researchers have an important role in contributing policy opinions to provincial and district authorities for tourism development in Lam Dong:

The role of researching and developing new tourism products, connecting stakeholders to participate in tourism projects with agricultural tourism models and contributing policy opinions to local authorities and tourism management agencies. (Researcher, female, 43 years old, Da Lat).

Cooperation as a business partnership: The relationship is clearly shown at both Lac Duong and Lam Ha destinations. To attract visitors to visit and experience

experience, local businesses, farmers and tourism enterprises are forced to find suitable partners to link with PTDL and from here, the HTCBLQ network has been created. The essence of the partnership is the interaction between the two sides, the forms of cooperation taking place between subjects such as tourism enterprises, tour guides and farmers, local businesses and tourism enterprises, local businesses and people, local businesses and tourism enterprise representatives. In which, the interaction includes both formal and informal interactions.

After its establishment, it has linked up with a number of partners, international tour guides, such as Dau Chan Viet travel companies. (Gong group leader, male, 35 years old, Lac Duong).

Connect individually, cooperate, and connect when there are customers. Usually, I work with business owners, coffee shops, establishments with attractive destinations, tourist areas, mostly like that, and then restaurants that are able to provide food services for their tours . (Business director, male, 33 years old, Da Lat).

Interactions only take place when there are tourists. This is also a great difficulty in the business operations of tourism businesses. However, through interviews, it is shown that these relationships are quite close because cooperation is based on contracts, agreements, commitments and trust. Cooperation is based on the exchange of resources, benefits and promotes participation. In addition, cooperation will help share information, improve and enhance the quality of tourism products, create new products and help achieve economic benefits for participants. In fact, cooperation in partnership helps local businesses, farmers, and gong groups increase trust with other businesses inside and outside the locality and thus increase their power and legitimacy.

At the same time, from the people's side, they also have the desire to cooperate with other related parties such as enterprises, collective economic organizations such as agricultural cooperatives, farmers through commitments between the parties. This will ensure stable output, increase the value of agricultural products and tourism:

Currently, we really want the parties to commit, currently there is not a close relationship between enterprises, farmers, and collective economic organizations, that is the most important issue. This helps us to do both agricultural economics and tourism to increase family economy, reduce hunger and reduce poverty in the locality (Representative of Farmers' Association, male, 44 years old, Lam Ha).

Interview results of representatives of the Tourism Association on the cooperative relationship between Lam Dong Provincial Tourism Association and rural tourism enterprises are almost non-existent.

The tourism association performs the function of being in charge of the freelance tour guide profession according to the new Tourism Law 2017, managing and supporting and making many commitments. However, the association's activities are only related to tourism enterprises (hotels, restaurants, scenic spots, transportation, etc.) and have no relation to rural enterprises doing tourism based on agriculture. (Business representative, male, 35 years old, Da Lat).

This shows that the Association's membership has not yet expanded to include farmers and tourism businesses that rely on agricultural resources in rural areas. This reduces opportunities for interaction and connection with other partners, and at the same time, farmers and local businesses do not have the opportunity to overcome the limitations in tourism business.

Public-private partnership: is a cooperative relationship between local authorities and relevant parties (directly through top-down and bottom-up coordination) through tourism planning, implementation of documents and regulations of the State and localities on tourism development associated with agricultural development and new rural construction in a sustainable direction.

In terms of policy, the leaders of the Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism are also very interested. In terms of propaganda work, the Department of Information and Communications coordinates with the Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism. On the leadership side, they are very supportive. In terms of policy, the District Party Committee currently has many policies for sustainable tourism development. The district leaders are also very interested. Other departments have a relatively smooth combination. For example, the Department of Culture and Infrastructure on infrastructure construction. On the agricultural side, agricultural tourism is closely linked to new rural construction, which is sustainable agricultural tourism development. (QQDP, female, 40 years old, Lam Ha).

Cooperation between local authorities and local communities : This form is the coordination between local authorities and local people in carrying out tourism-related activities. For local authorities, implementing the policies of the Party and State, guiding documents of the province and district to local people, national programs on new rural construction, poverty reduction, especially for ethnic minorities associated with preserving the cultural identity of the community to ensure creating conditions for people to develop household economy:

Encourage households to maintain and develop the cultural identity of the community, ensure that activities comply with the regulations and guidelines of the central, provincial, district, and local authorities to avoid negative public opinion in the area. Annual meetings are held to evaluate the situation of activities and directions in the coming time, ensuring that security and order do not occur... Coordinate with all levels and provinces to further promote the local image. (Representative of local authorities, male, 32 years old, Lac Duong).

Regarding the local government, in terms of policy, we create conditions for people to participate more, because they have culture, pass it on to the next generation, and learn from tradition.

The majority of the population is farmers so they don't care. (Representative of the local government, male, 56 years old, Lac Duong).

Thus, in the research area, the forms and contents of cooperation focus on the goals that the parties desire. It can be seen that each form of cooperation has its own characteristics and plays an important role in the economic, cultural - social and environmental development in the locality. The results also suggest that cooperation provides suitable opportunities for the majority of stakeholders to work together for better benefits. Especially the consensus among the participants in tourism cooperation from different groups.

4.2.2. The role of cooperation between stakeholders in rural tourism development

First, stakeholders’ awareness of the importance of HTCBLQ in sustainable development of NTDL. The vast majority of parties agree that cooperation is necessary for sustainable development of NTDL. For example, the head of a gong group in Lac Duong believes that cooperation requires partnership:

It is very necessary to involve tourism partners together for better organization . (Gong group leader, male, 35 years old, Lac Duong).

This is explained by the fact that in order to maintain tourism business, gong businesses need partners because tourism partners will help gong groups have a source of customers and organize better tourism programs. In many cases, partners are also related to the existence of their businesses. Because of the lack of initiative in relationships, the dependence on external tourism partners is very large. In addition, the interview results also clarify the understanding of the parties about the role of cooperation in sustainable tourism development, towards common goals for the community and building a local tourism environment. The importance of cooperation continues to be emphasized through an interview with a representative of a rural business:

One swallow does not make a spring, so there must be a community, one person alone cannot create a good tourism environment, so there must be a connection between businesses . ... Actually, I do not say anything about other establishments, but for me, I think that connecting with tourism establishments is a very good thing, if there is no connection, it is a disadvantage, production establishments like mine always need to combine, join hands with tour offices, travel companies, I even have to have seminars with those comrades so that I can exchange working methods, how to serve customers, what products to serve customers better, it is very necessary to have a connection between production establishments and travel companies, it is extremely necessary, and it will increase growth. (Business director, male, 54 years old, Lam Ha).

Through observation, we see that in order to be able to produce and trade, supply silk to provinces and even export to some countries and to meet the needs of tourists for souvenir shopping, this enterprise must link with surrounding households to purchase mulberry leaves, cocoons and other input materials for production. Therefore, linking with farming households to provide input materials for the enterprise's production is extremely necessary. This shows that the agricultural production and tourism processes need to have mutually beneficial relationships.

In the tourism business, in which the hotel is a part of a chain of services that are directly related to each other, I think relationships play a very important role in supporting each other to form a closed chain . (Hotel manager, male, 35 years old, Lam Ha).

Thus, it can be seen that in order to have a good tourism environment, it is necessary to have the participation of many parties in cooperation such as local authorities, households, businesses, tourist accommodation establishments, etc. to form a chain of cooperation links for sustainable tourism development. The viewpoints of the subjects are also synonymous with a very famous, meaningful and quite popular African proverb today: " If you want to go fast, go alone, if you want to go far, go together " or " The strength of the group is each member. The strength of each member is the group ." - Phil Jackson. In Lam Ha and Lac Duong, the relationship between partners is very clear, because the scale of local households and businesses is often small, so the resources for sustainable tourism development are not sufficient. In other words, many households, tourism enterprises or businesses related to tourism still lack the necessary skills to develop sustainable tourism. They need to diversify their partnerships for production and business. Therefore, to link cooperation for sustainable PTDLNT, the cooperation network between partners is appropriate, building long-term vision and goals, creating consensus, contributing to appropriate policies to promote PTDLNT in a sustainable direction. Therefore, the role of HTCBLQ becomes more important in developing both agriculture and PTDLNT in a sustainable direction at the local level.

For the tourism researcher that:

To develop rural tourism, cooperation is required, mechanisms must be established, and the role of local authorities is key. (Researcher, female, 43 years old, Da Lat).

This shows that cooperation is one of the important factors for sustainable development of tourism. To promote cooperation, it is necessary for local authorities to participate in orientation and establish mechanisms to ensure a favorable environment.

Second, the most important role of cooperation is agreed upon is benefit sharing. For the people, personal benefits are more important while for the enterprises, people

Founder of the Central Highlands gong establishment, tourism researcher is interested in both personal and collective interests. Only when collective interests are achieved can there be personal interests.

Private, individual and collective interests are mutually beneficial. (D14, male, 60 years old, Lac Duong). Only when there is collective interest can there be personal interest , only then can it be sustainable (Researcher, female, 43 years old, Da Lat).

Third, through the JICA project, members are enhanced with awareness, understanding, knowledge and skills in tourism. For example, they are able to participate in capacity building courses on tourism and ecotourism guides:

Previously participated in JICA project, ecotourism guide training course.

(Gong group leader, male, 35 years old, Lac Duong).

Meeting with experts, learning more about the importance of forests, learning from the experiences of advanced countries, applying them to local economic development to improve living conditions, thereby significantly reducing the impact in Luoyang, which had a lot of impact before. Natural disasters and climate change. (CC group leader, male, 52 years old, Luoyang).

At the same time, through the interaction between members, it has helped them improve their ability to interact, improve the understanding of local people about forest protection, protecting their living environment. This is an important goal of PTDLNT in a sustainable direction that is always focused on in Lac Duong district.

Fourth, cooperation helps contribute to PTDL planning. This is an important foundation for implementing PTDLNT in a sustainable manner.

In Lam Ha district, when asked about cooperation to help contribute ideas to policy making and planning for sustainable tourism development, the answer affirmed the connection between departments in development orientation and management.

Must have everything, for example, spiritual tourism requires us to coordinate with the Department of Internal Affairs, the cultural sector, and localities. For example, for the tourist attraction of Voi waterfall, we must coordinate with the Department of Agriculture, the Forestry Department to protect the forest environment, ecology, and the Infrastructure Department on general planning. For example, adventure tourism must coordinate with the health sector, the police, immigration, and the provincial committee to organize this tour. Craft village tourism must coordinate with the Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism, the Department of Agriculture in the rural development project . (CQDP, female, 40 years old, Lam Ha).

Thus, it can be seen that the local government has identified the potentials and strengths of tourism in the district associated with each type of tourism to coordinate with management departments.

Comment