Developing Tourism in Traditional Craft Villages: Theoretical Basis, Practice and Lessons Learned

Abstract

As a country associated with a long-standing agricultural civilization and nearly 2,000 traditional craft villages, Vietnam possesses great resources for developing craft village tourism, rural tourism, and community tourism. Tourism activities associated with traditional craft villages not only have economic value and help people have more income, but also have cultural significance, contributing to maintaining and developing professions that are in danger of extinction. However, in traditional craft villages in Vietnam, tourism activities have not been harmoniously combined with production activities, nor have taken advantage of opportunities from this combination. As a result, many craft villages, after the opening of tourism activities, had to close down. The reasons were the shortage of revenue for maintaining the operation, conflicts of interest in the community due to the failure to agree on a benefit-sharing mechanism among members; or failure to attract tourists as the products of the craft village were not suitable for tourism. This article contributes to clarifying some concepts, models, and forms of combining tourism in the production and business activities of craft villages and, at the same time, offers lessons learned in developing craft village tourism in Vietnam.