I will start with Hue because it is a more straightforward type of site and because I want to dispel any notion which I may have mistakenly conveyed that local community empowerment is the panacea to all tourism development issues. All development issues are management issues embedded in a matrix of power at the family, village, tribal, national, regional and global levels. Tourism is no different and the failure of sustainability from which so many tourism development schemes suffer is caused precisely by the failure to reconcile the interests of all stakeholders.

Hue is the former royal capital of Vietnam. Inscribed on UNESCO’s World Heritage List in 1993, it was the subject of a priority international safeguarding campaign by UNESCO from 1994–95. The purpose of this campaign was to restore the site and the traditional culture associated with it, not only by conserving the physical remains but also through the revitalisation of Vietnam’s intangible cultural heritage which had been trivialised by colonisation, discredited by political ideology and decimated by war.

The challenge in Hue has been to take a rather decrepit, although emotionally significant, cultural heritage site and to bring it back to life by re-discovering the crafts, sciences, tools, materials, but also the landscapes, music, food, activities, art and poetry which were associated with it. This also is a challenge familiar in the Pacific with its rich, but sometimes eroded, heritage of intangible culture. The challenge for tourism development at Hue and at many sites in the Asia Pacific region is the same: how to keep what is sacred, sacred; how to retain or revitalise the richness, complexity and creativity of the traditional performing arts; how to maintain cultural authenticity and communicate an appreciation of this to the visitor—both foreign and domestic—privileged enough to experience it.

At the present time, tourism in Hue is still small-scale and manageable, but it is expanding quickly. As part of UNESCO’s campaign to safeguard the site, and with the help of students from the Hue University, the local business association undertook econometric studies to address the potential contribution of cultural tourism to the rehabilitation of the socioeconomic life of Hue.

Based on the results of this study, a year-long series of training workshops was conducted for both public and private sector players interested in developing tourism at Hue. These workshops targeted a wide spectrum of stakeholders: land developers and hotel entrepreneurs; local historians and students looking for employment in the tourism industry; cyclo drivers and souvenir vendors; even handicapped street people who formerly begged for alms outside the monuments and temples.

The workshops resulted in a detailed tourism development management plan that was compiled for the guidance of everyone. The specific provisions of this plan were re-debated at length by the local and regional People’s Committees then adopted and sent to the Prime Minister for promulgation as policy.

In outline format, the Hue Plan for Sustainable Tourism Development, makes the following statements with regard to financing, zoning and integration of living culture into a heritage site tourism development plan.

Finance. Although heritage conservation is not incompatible with sustainable tourism development, there must be a well thought-out plan that is used by all actors as the basis for this development, if the concerns of heritage preservation are to be given due consideration. Following a well thought-out master plan can, in fact, lead to the reinvigoration of traditional cultures by creating new audiences (that is, consumers) for traditional culture and offering the possibilities of financing this cultural revival with tourist revenues. In outline,

Zoning. Although an increase in visitors to a site can bring economic benefits, the increase in the number of people is in itself problematic because of the additional stress it places on the already fragile monuments. Therefore it is important to determine and respect the limits of the carrying capacity of each monument, site or facility. Consequently,

Integrating living and historical culture. It is both desirable and possible to expand both the carrying capacity of a site and the touristic interest of a site by integrating intangible culture with the physical heritage. A lively local culture of dance, theatre, poetry, painting and even food, all encourage a visitor to stay longer in the area and give the visitor a greater depth of understanding about the traditional local culture. Research documentation and training are necessary in order to ensure that the authenticity of these intangible cultural traditions is scrupulously preserved. In brief

The Vietnamese tourism development plan for Hue shows that conservation and preservation of cultural heritage through cultural tourism depends on the combined efforts of the different stakeholders. A strong government policy on cultural tourism and heritage preservation is important, but this must be accompanied by a commitment at the local level to ensure that policy is carried out. Cooperation among institutions and agencies involved in tourism is also needed to bring finance and state-of-the-art expertise to this effort. The contribution of the mass media and the education system are also vital in increasing the awareness of the entire local population concerning the importance of preserving historical building and archaeological sites.

Although Laos is a landlocked country, it presents many development analogies to Pacific island states in terms of its isolation, small population, low GDP, a regional approach to development based on historical ties, trade and migration routes, and intimate links between its natural environment and culture. Laos, like some of the Pacific states, is, according to the United Nations, also one of the world’s ‘least-developed economies’. A crucial aspect for policy formulation in Lao PDR is the way in which culture and the natural environment are interlinked. Forty per cent of the land is under forest and these forests are home to 68 different ethnic groups.

Recognising the wealth of this heritage, the Lao government has made a commitment to the preservation of its cultural heritage and natural environment. However, a single-minded, country-wide commitment to the preservation of tropical forests and rivers in their pristine state is not a viable political option for Laos. The imperatives of poverty alleviation and economic development dictate that the natural environment be put to economically productive use. The task for policymakers is to accomplish this on a sustainable basis, with a minimum of environmental degradation and in such a way as control of the environment remains in Lao hands.

The biggest asset of developing countries is often their beautiful natural landscape and unique, living traditional culture, therefore governments frequently seek to market their countries through tourism as an immediate way to earn foreign exchange. Laos has also chosen this option.

With the opening of the Lao PDR to international and inter-regional tourism, there are increasing internal and external pressures on the national and local tourism authorities to approve and invest in a wide variety of tourism products and to improve the infrastructure to support the growing tourism industry. However, a too rapid expansion of the cultural and ecotourism industry without adequate regard for the carrying capacity of the environment, or without a mechanism for providing the funds and technical expertise for the required increase in conservation, will prove devastating both to the ecotourism industry and to the cultural heritage of Laos.

Urgent assistance is required to ensure the creation of a sound tourism investment policy, which guarantees that a major percentage of the economic benefits earned by tourism stay within the country and are applied in ways that directly benefit the population of that country. Without this assistance in economic policy formulation, grass-roots community empowerment will have little long-term effect.

There is an urgent need to enhance the capacity of Lao tourism planners and authorities to handle this situation in a proactive way, and to create mechanisms for the direct participation of communities affected by increased tourism in order to bring economic benefits, safeguard the environment, and maintain cultural and spiritual values intact.

The challenge presented to UNESCO by the National Tourism Authority of Laos was to assist the national authorities to meet these needs by developing sustainable ‘ecotourism’ in the 24 ‘national bio-diversity conservation areas’ which together comprise fully one-quarter of the total land area of country. This daunting task was complicated by the fact that all of the 24 conservation areas are home to significant numbers of minority tribal peoples, some of whom have been identified by UNESCO as having among the most endangered cultures of the world.

‘Ecotourism’ is a term loosely used by the tourism industry to connote organising tourist activities around visits to natural scenic locations and visits to villages of the local inhabitants. Usually this appellation is merely politically-correct advertising copy, disguising the all-too-familiar exploitation of people and environments by mass-based tourism.

However, ‘ecotourism’ also has the potential to be a significant development activity, in which case its proper implementation is considerably more complicated than taking tourists for a hike in a forest or diving on a coral reef. The Ecotourism Society’s 1992 definition of ecotourism is ‘purposeful travel to natural areas to understand the cultural and natural history of the environment, taking care not to alter the integrity of the ecosystem, while producing economic opportunities that make the conservation of natural resources financially beneficial to local citizens.’ The 1995 Australian National Ecotourism Strategy defines ecotourism as ‘tourism that involves education and interpretation of the natural and cultural environment and is managed to be ecologically sustainable.’

UNESCO assistance to Laos—co-financed by the government of New Zealand and by the first-ever grant to UNESCO by the International Finance Corporation—consists in fostering the articulation of an endogenous tourism management plan. A plan based on traditionally evolved practices of land use and stewardship, and consideration of criteria and the commercial viability of private investment. The goal is to ensure that local cultural communities can continue to manage their environments sustainably and in accordance with established traditional practices while simultaneously developing their economic potential through ecotourism.

The participants of this project and its beneficiaries are

Project activities emphasise the sustained economic development of natural and cultural resources by planning and promoting environmentally sound and culturally appropriate ecotourism, which is community based and ensures that any benefits will be shared with the affected communities through the generation of employment and other economic opportunities. The involvement of local communities in decision-making and the distribution of economic benefits is essential to achieve long-term sustainable development in the area.

To this end, endogenous models of cultural and ecotourism development, based on traditional community land management practices—to the extent that they continue to be sustainable—and technical expertise from the natural and cultural conservation sciences have been developed in northern Lao PDR. The models are now being tested and evaluated in one particularly vulnerable and protected area bordering China and Myanmar: Luang Namtha.

The criterion used to evaluate the models is their success in attaining non-subsidised, commercial viability, providing local employment opportunities and contributing to raising the standard of living of the people of the area to comparable national levels, contributing to their long-term welfare and allowing them to maintain the integrity of their social and cultural traditions.

The models developed in Luang Namtha hopefully will be applicable to cultural and ecotourism development in the other protected areas of the Lao PDR, with modifications to fit local environmental, cultural and developmental conditions. These models will serve to guide both public and private sector investment in this industry, leading to job creation in rural areas, enabling local communities to participate in the management and conservation of their natural and cultural resources for the sustainable development of tourism and other economic sectors.