Feasibility Study to develop tourism hub in the North Tonkin Gulf Marine Protected Areas

Quan Lan Beach, Bai Tu Long

An important goal of destination development is extending visitor stay to an area.  The North Tonkin Gulf in Vietnam contains Two National Parks, a World Heritage Site and a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve, all with marine components.


Currently they are all marketed separately, often in a way that ignores one another.

The IUCN funded study conducted a detailed tourism situational analysis of Bai Tu Long Bay National Park, Cat Ba National Park, Ha Long Bay World Heritage Area and Cat Ba Man and Biosphere Reserve.  Potential tourism linkages were identified, and a strategy for inter-agency and inter-province dialogue and communication was developed.

Empty coal barges travel to the mines

The study showed that without the need for significant investment, it would be possible to increase the average stay in the area from 1.4 to 2-3, using the Ha Long Bay World Heritage Area (Vietnam's most visited and financially stable attraction) as a central marketing hub.

Click here for pictures.

The EcoBoat Project, Ha Long Bay

The EcoBoat

EcoBoat is an environmental education project that aims to take local groups of students out into Ha Long Bay and put them through a basic awareness raising programme that instills a sense of pride and thus help conserve the future of the bay.  The project was funded by the UK Darwin Initiative due to the sustainable financing mechanism, which involved taking paying trips from regional international schools on multi-day trips into the bay on environmental education and outward bounds style excursions.  This was specifically targeted at schools' "activity week".

Hanoi International School

My role was to coordinate project activities, develop the international education curriculum, and capacity build project staff in outdoor education, group leadership and safety skills, as well as to lead international trips, travel to countries in the region on marketing trips and to work with the Ha Long Bay Management Department to institutionally develop the project.  I worked for the best part of two years on the project, being based in Ha Long City.

Successes were made in developing educational methodology and style within Ha Ling Bay Management Department and the local education department.  Education is very "top down" in Vietnam, where the teacher has the knowledge and gives it to the student without question (for example, during an initial workshop with local teachers, I began with asking the question "what is conservation?", to which a comment was "he doesn't even know what conservation is! he's asking us!".  Staff became proficient in facilitating student lead discussions and practical learning.

Not all work: Tug of War on Soi Sim

Partnerships were made with international schools in Hanoi and Singapore, with various projects being run in cooperation with local schools (such as the mangrove rehabilitation project).

Thousands of local students experienced a different type of environmental education in a beautiful environment, as well of hundreds of international students learning about the effects of human impacts on the environment.

As well as these successes, I was aware from the outset that the project had considerable challenges that would take considerable effort to overcome, and ultimately caused me to leave the project early to pursue my consultancy:

• The sustainable financing mechanism was based upon assumption not research - there is a high competition for "activity week" providers in the region ho offer a highly professional service.  The bottom line for international school parents is cost, for the most they pay high fees and did not see why they should pay a premium to support free trips for others.
  
• The total reliance on Ha Long Bay Management Department's boat, staff and crew was too inflexible to provide a slick product as demanded by the client group.  Issues such as alcohol consumption and safety were always a concern in a potentially dangerous environment.  Project staff and crew were often unable to attend basic safety training and drills due to other commitments.
  
• Staff retention would always be an issue at the end of the project without sustainable financing.  When initial funds ran out, and the project was transferred to local government operation and salaries, the highly trained project staff simply moved on, thus removing the key asset of the project.
  
• Perhaps overall, the project would not actually tackle the issues affecting the bay, which were, and will continue to be damage to environmental systems through rapid and ill-managed development (specifically the water composition in the bay has been altered by the removal of hundreds of square kilometres of mangrove forest, that has thus killed all of the bay's coral).  School children would have little ability to influence the bays development in the immediate future.

Mangrove lesson

At the end of the project, after a gap of six months, funding and thus activities were resumed with the support of the Australian Santos Corporation.  Sadly, the Ha Long Bay Management Department had decided to drop the EcoBoat from its portfolio citing lack of funds - international development money is hard to obtain for Vietnam's most visited and richest protected area.

Click here for EcoBoat pictures and here for Ha Long Bay pictures.

Community Based Tourism in Trao Reef Locally Managed Marine Reserve

Fishing boat in Trao bay

Trao Reef is a locally run marine protected area project located to the North of Nha Trang City, and is unusual that it was genuinely requested, and run by the local community, who were becoming concerned at falling fish stocks in the bay.  A very different style of project (with a fraction of the funding than the similar project running in Nha Trang at the time) was set up to protect primerily the coral reef in the bay, as well as provide wider benefits to the community.

The Community Team

My role was to evaluate the market for, and design, a community based tourism product suitable for the community.  With a major tourism hub of Nha Trang nearby, there was a market for deeper and more meaningful experiences provided by the typical Nha Trang budget boat trip.

Diving in a lobster cage

Pilot trips were set up and activities, though small scale, were successful.  The biggest challenge was finding and maintaining a suitable and sympathetic tour operator partner in Nha Trang.

Click here for pictures.

The Glass Bottom Basket Boat

Mr Xay and his boat

Basket boats are a traditional coracle used by the poorer fishing communities in central and southern Vietnam, they are also a cultural icon and of intrinsic appeal to visitors.  So why not combine this with a little modern technology and build one out of plastic and install a glass bottom? - perfect for viewing coral in shallow water (they have a very shallow draught), are quiet, suitable for non-swimmers to view coral, and they don't risk spilling petrochemicals over sensitive habitat.  They also have tourism appeal and are relatively cheap and could be purchased using a micro-credit scheme.

The objective of the project was alternative income generation and livelihood support, combined with a little ecotourism, environmental education, guide training and interpretation.  Working with poorer fishers previously involved in squid fishing the project set out to provide comprehensive livelihood support to participants - changing their livelihood from a primary exploitative sector to the tertiary tourism service sector: less people fishing in the marine protected area.

Traditional basket boats

Key components of the project included:

• Finding willing participants in the target group
• Working with the fisheries university to make a prototype boat or less than 6 million VND
• Provided access to micro-credit scheme so participants could purchase their boat
• Developing training programme that included coral reef identification, basic environmental protection, marketing, financial management and basic English
• Developed simple interpretive guide and phonetic language guide
• Developed trials 
• Developed regulations permitting activity and limiting maximum number of operators, linked to wider tourism management plan
• Developed system of cooperation with local operators to provide guests
• Provided on-going start up support to operators 
  
  

Mr Hien

Successes included participants paying off loans in the first season and earning a better income than from fishing..  Five years later participants are still earning a decent livelihood through their basket boats, being joined by others.  The project featured on the BBC Really Wild Show! in the UK.

The most significant challenge was provincial departments took much convincing of the feasibility of the project and the suitability of poor fishers being involved in the tourism industry, which took considerable perseverance to achieve.  Click here for pictures.

Nha Trang Bay Marine Protected Area Visitor's Centre

Visitor's Centre when completed

OK, so it's not in the right place, and we didn't control the layout of the building, but myself and my colleague Susanne spent a good part of the Hon Mun Project in developing the interpretive materials for the Hon Mun Island Visitor's Centre.  What was particularly "innovative" in Vietnamese terms was we used a stakeholder consultancy process to develop the materials (contrary to the belief of the Director of the MPA Authority who thought the entire interpretive planning process could be done in a day or two).

Cutting the boat

We worked with local fishing communities to find out about all their different types of boat, the history behind the "eyes" on a boat, the "Ca Ong" (whale) festival, and about their day to day lives.

Displays in the Centre

We commissioned large concrete coral models, interpretive panels, and even chainsawed a decommissioned fishing boat in two.  Oh yes, the Visitor's Centre... became a fabulous habitat for bats!  Click here for pictures.

Sustainable Tourism Adviser for Hon Mun/Nha Trang Bay Marine Protected Area Pilot Project

Hon Mun Island, the MPA Core Zone

I first came to Vietnam as a professional Volunteer with the UK based charity VSO.  My two year assignment was the Hon Mun Marine Protected Area Pilot Project in the sunny Vietnamese seaside town of Nha Trang.  The four year project was implemented under IUCN using the project staff sets up and capacity-builds a local management authority method.  Funders included the Global Environment Facility, the World Bank and Danida.

Colourful Corals

The waters of the MPA contained very high diversities of hard and soft coral, as well as abundant marine life.  However, fisheries were declining, and biodiversity and thus livelihoods being lost rapidly.  The project sought to tackle these issues.

My role was as the Sustainable Tourism Adviser to project and MPA Authority, with a specific task of working with the five communities living withing the nine islands that made up the marine protected area, a total of 5,000 people.  

Nha Trang City Beach

I worked with my Vietnamese counterparts within the MPA Authority, ran regular training in sustainable and ecotourism, worked with the local commercial sector, developed tourism micro-projects in the bay, developed interpretive materials and a visitor's centre and worked on tourism training programmes in the island communities.  The project introduced me to the trials and tribulations of the development and NGO sector, as well as the difficulties of working in Vietnam.  I worked with some fabulous local counterparts, built large stone models of coral, worked with a Tourism Professor from my home University in the UK, and got to witness the transformation of a provincial town into a major tourism destination.  And I did get to work with a BBC film crew on the Really Wild Show, and met Michaella Strachan (and took her dancing to the sailing club!), as well as meet some of the worlds leading figures in marine conservation.

Diving

Key tourism activities included the ubiquitous budget party boat trip, small scale beach day resorts, the occasional jet-ski and Vietnam's largest diving destination. 



With retrospect, the main problem of the project was that it failed to take into account its setting.  It was a rural marine conservation project designed for rural communities, not Vietnam's premier and fastest developing beach tourism site.

Boats being serviced before the Tet holiday

For example, a quarter of the budget was spent on sustainable aquaculture projects - villages and aquaculture cages were relocated by the provincial authorities to gain access to the "Most Beautiful Bays in the World Club".  Much emphasis was placed upon the micro-credit scheme, which saw slightly bizarre results including local residents being persuaded to purchase cows (no grazing land available), pigs (pigs died because they were kept in a barrel without light to prevent theft - no training), rabbits (dying due to alcohol poisoning and starvation - rabbits arrived before training), ostrich farming (thankfully this one didn't happen), purchase of bigger fishing nets and lobster fishing, sport net manufacture (people earning 15 cents a day), rattan basket weaving (supported by a local factory, but no mechanism to continue after project funding ended)... and so on.

Scuba diving boats

For my work, as Sustainable Tourism Adviser with a remit to work with local communities, the biggest challenge was the MPA Authority, who wanted to develop their own mainstream tourism business that had no place for local community members.  What was not mentioned in the project description was that four of the communities were living on an island that belonged to the military, and no tourism activities were permitted to take place there.  Also, the provincial development plan stated that all people living within the MPA would be relocated over the course of the following five years, with the islands to be sold off and developed as tourism resorts.

Mr Hien's grandchildren, Hon Mot

Tourism has since boomed in Nha Trang as it has become a popular destination with Vietnamese tourists.  Islanders have been relocated from most villages, and various tourism resorts have been constructed or are in the planning stage throughout the MPA.  The core zone of Hon Mun remains heavily over exploited by tourism, as no curbs have been placed upon tourism numbers, type or activity, and local fishers appear to have been allowed in to fish within the core zone.  Local dive operators have tried to create a dive association to challenge the MPA Authority, but as made little progress: competition is fierce and Nha Trang remains one of the cheapest places in the world to dive.  Click here for pictures.

Hon Mot Community Based Tourism

Judging the cookery competition

A small project I put together as part of the Hon Mun MPA Project was working with local ladies on Hon Mot Island to provide basic tourism training and infrastructure for visitors.  The focus of this was organising cookery  classes (which had the added benefit of sneaking in nutritional and hygiene training too), to which I was the judge in the final competition.

The training remit was simple - teach local participants to make good, cheap, tasty food from locally available ingredients, market it well, and sell to the passing boat trade for a good profit.  The project actually worked well, there was enough trade from independent boat trips to use the facilities on the island, and a small trade developed in providing deck chairs and sun-shades.  Click here for pictures.