The Role of Tourism Development in Socio-Economic Life

Each type of tourism requires different climatic conditions such as beach tourism suitable for temperatures from 20 o C - 25 o C, mountain climbing tourism suitable for climates with little rain... Therefore, for tourism to operate effectively, business units need to base on the climatic characteristics of the region to develop the corresponding type of tourism.

Water is an indispensable factor for tourism development. Nowadays, water not only creates a fresh atmosphere but in some places, water also has medicinal properties (mineral water, hot water, etc.). This is the condition for many places to expand medical tourism.

Flora and fauna are also factors that attract tourists. Some species are used for hunting and tourism, while others are used for research. Many people want to see wildlife in their own eyes. Nature tourism is becoming a popular trend.

Second, besides natural resources, human resources also play an important role in tourism development. Human resources are historical and cultural values, economic and political achievements that are specific to each region. All countries have historical values, but each country has different attractions. Historical values usually attract domestic tourists who want to learn about their own national history, but there are also historical values of some ethnic groups that arouse curiosity for foreign tourists (China, India, Egypt, etc.). Similar to historical values, cultural values attract tourists for research and sightseeing purposes. Because cultural values are often associated with cultural activities (art exhibitions, fairs, festivals, etc.) or traditional customs. These are the first potentials that help develop tourism in countries.

Third are the conditions of readiness to welcome tourists. It includes organizational conditions (organizational and management capacity of local and central leadership, management institutions, tourism business organizations, etc.), conditions of tourism infrastructure and techniques such as hotels, restaurants, parks, transportation systems, etc. The effectiveness of exploiting and using tourism resources is largely determined by these infrastructure and techniques. In addition, economic conditions also affect the readiness to serve tourists. Because if the local economy develops, it will provide consumer goods and services that are good in both quantity and quality, creating abundant capital for investment in tourism. Because this is a constantly changing economic sector.

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Thus, for countries with rich and diverse tourism potential, there will be great advantages for tourism development. Although the above conditions are interrelated, each condition has certain independent effects on tourism development. Therefore, if one of these conditions is lacking, tourism activities will stagnate, develop unbalancedly, decline or stop completely. All of these conditions are guaranteed to help tourism develop strongly and sustainably.

1.3.3. The role of tourism development in economic and social life

Tourism plays an extremely important role in the economic and social life of each country and each locality. It is one of the conditions contributing to economic development, reducing poverty, backwardness, improving and enhancing the quality of life for the population.

- Tourism contributes to the economic restructuring, especially the rural economy. Because most of the areas with developed tourism activities are located in rural areas of our country. In rural areas, people mainly live on agriculture (growing rice, crops, raising livestock, etc.), most of which are small-scale production, manual labor, low income, and a lot of free time, so there is a lack of jobs and surplus labor.

The labor force in this area is very large. Therefore, if tourism is developed, it will attract a large number of workers to work in restaurants, hotels, etc. Moreover, tourism development also helps traditional craft villages recover and develop initially, creating a change in the proportion between rural industries, attracting workers from agricultural production to small-scale industrial production, promoting commercial activities.

- Contribute to poverty reduction. This is one of the most difficult problems to overcome for developing countries like Vietnam. Because to completely eliminate poverty, it is impossible to rely solely on the sympathy, concern, and sharing of the community (calling for contributions to establish a poverty reduction fund), but the decisive factor is to create internal resources so that each family and individual can work and produce to increase their income, improve their own living standards and ensure that they do not fall back into poverty. Tourism development will create many jobs for the population, because they can participate in tourism services (selling souvenirs, guiding tourists, renting motels, etc.). However, to truly eliminate poverty, there must also be support policies from the State such as lending capital to poor households at preferential interest rates, vocational training, etc.

- Tourism plays an important role in increasing foreign currency revenue for the country. Because international tourists are the ones who have the ability to pay high for tourism services such as food, accommodation, souvenirs, transportation, etc.

- Tourism activities have a strong impact on the flow of money. A large amount of money will move from high-income areas (urban areas, industrial centers) to lower-income areas (rural areas, mountainous areas). Therefore, tourism plays a positive role in balancing the income gap between regions. The process of moving money through tourism consumption to less developed areas partly shortens the distance and improves the inequality in living standards in more difficult areas.

- Tourism activities contribute to stimulating infrastructure development. Because tourism is an inter-sectoral and inter-regional activity, it requires great support from other sectors. Tourism development must be based on a deep chain: transportation (airports, ports, ferries, etc.), restaurants, hotels, medical facilities, post offices, water supply and drainage systems, etc. of good quality and modernity. Therefore, tourism also plays a role in upgrading the national infrastructure system.

- Tourism attracts idle capital from the population and foreign investment sources through projects to build comprehensive tourist areas and key tourist areas.

- Tourism also attracts a large part of the population to participate in services, construction, and sales of tourism products, so it has the potential to reduce unemployment in localities. In addition, tourism also plays a role in limiting the migration from rural to urban areas in search of better job opportunities and living environments.

- Restore and preserve long-standing traditional cultural values through the development of cultural tourism: craft village tourism, festivals, historical relics, etc.

It can be seen that tourism is one of the industries that brings many positive values to the socio-economic life of the country. Its impact is very profound.

1.2. SUSTAINABLE TOURISM DEVELOPMENT

1.2.1. Concept of sustainable tourism development

“Sustainable development” is a very new concept, it reflects the trend of the times and the future direction of mankind. Different economic and environmental research organizations also put forward different concepts of sustainable development. In 1987, the World Commission on Environment and Development published the report: Our Common Future . This report mentioned and analyzed the relationship

The close relationship between environment and development. In which “the environment is where we live; development is what we do to try to improve everything inside the place we live, and so these two sides cannot be separated”. Also in this report, “sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations”.

Therefore, sustainable development is a healthy development in which the development of one individual does not harm the interests of another individual, the development of one individual does not harm the common interests of the community, the development of one community does not harm the interests of another community, the development of today's generation does not infringe upon the interests of future generations, and the development of the human generation does not threaten the survival or decline of the habitat of other species on the planet. Because human life is based on maintaining the output, natural productivity, resilience and diversity of the biosphere.

Thus, sustainable development is a process of close, reasonable and harmonious combination of three aspects: economic development, social development and environmental protection. The basic criteria for assessing sustainable development are stable economic growth; implementation of social progress and equity; rational exploitation and economical use of natural resources, protection and improvement of the quality of the living environment. The viewpoint of the Communist Party of Vietnam on sustainable development was affirmed at the 9th National Congress of the Party: "Rapid, effective and sustainable development, economic growth goes hand in hand with implementation of social progress, equity and environmental protection". This viewpoint was further affirmed and concretized at the 10th National Congress of the Party: "Rapid development goes hand in hand with improving sustainability, the two aspects interact with each other, expressed at both the macro and micro levels, in both the short and long term. Growth in quantity must go hand in hand with

improve the quality, efficiency and competitiveness of the economy… Economic growth must be linked to cultural development and comprehensive human development. Democracy, progress and social justice must be implemented… The environment must be highly valued, protected and improved in every step of development”.

On that basis, it can be understood that sustainable tourism development is the most complete and convenient response to the needs of tourists, attracting tourists to tourist areas and destinations, while protecting and improving the quality of this industry for the future. It is defined to guide the management of all resources, natural conditions, ecological environment and accompanying economic, social and cultural conditions, in a way that we can satisfy economic, social and aesthetic needs, while maintaining cultural integrity, essential ecological processes, biodiversity and life support systems.

1.2.2. Content of sustainable tourism development

There are currently three recognized pillars of sustainable development and any economic sector must aim to achieve all three of these basic goals:

- Economic sustainability, meaning creating growth, efficiency and stability for all levels of society and achieving value efficiency for all economic activities.

- Social sustainability, which is respect for human rights and equality for all in society. It is endogenous development carried out by that society itself, not exogenous development, living entirely on external resources. It requires equitable distribution of benefits, with a focus on poverty reduction.

- Environmental sustainability means protecting and managing resources, especially non-renewable, non-renewable and rare resources that are essential to human life.

Therefore, to develop tourism sustainably, we need to ensure tourism development in the interaction of the three poles mentioned above.

For sustainable economic development, tourism growth will contribute a significant portion of profits to the State budget, promoting an increasingly reasonable economic restructuring.

For sustainable social development, tourism must ensure long-term benefits for society such as creating jobs for workers, contributing to increasing income, improving the quality of life of residents and social stability, while preserving cultural and social values (preserving traditional cultural identity).

For sustainable environmental development, it is required that while developing tourism, the exploitation and use of resources to meet the needs of the current generation must ensure that the needs of future generations are not harmed. This is clearly demonstrated in the issue of using resources reasonably to ensure the conservation of biodiversity and limit negative impacts on the ecological environment.

1.2.3. Principles of sustainable tourism development

The tourism industry has a special position in contributing to sustainable development and is one of the challenges of the industry itself. This is due to its own growth momentum and its great contributions to the national economy. Moreover, tourism is an activity with a close correlation between consumers (tourists), tourism businesses, the environment and the local community. It is these interactions that require sustainable development in the tourism industry to comply with the following principles:

1.2.3.1. Respect and care for community life

While exploiting tourism potential, organizations must take primary responsibility for maintaining and improving the environment in places considered the main business objects of tourism activities. Before implementing tourism development projects, it is necessary to survey and research the area carefully to minimize negative impacts on resources, environment and the lives of local communities. Units also need to ensure the development of diverse service business activities, with the fullest participation of local communities. It is necessary to share fairly between the benefits and costs of protecting resources and the environment among communities and related groups, between the rich and the poor, between the present generation and the next generation. Therefore, this principle demonstrates human responsibility and ethics for development in general.

1.2.3.2. Improve the quality of human life

The goal of sustainable socio-economic development is to continuously improve the quality of human life. Therefore, if tourism wants to develop sustainably, it must also pay attention to the quality of life of the people. In fact, tourism development will be able to create many jobs (serving in restaurants, hotels, guiding tourists, selling souvenirs, etc.), contributing to helping the locality solve the problem of unemployment, significantly increasing the income of the people. When people have more income, they also have the conditions to improve their material, cultural and spiritual life (raising cultural level, entertainment, recreation, etc.) and limit social evils.

1.2.3.3. Tourism development is associated with protecting life and preserving diversity.

Tourism development must depend mainly on natural and human potentials. Therefore, tourism development must be based on protection.