Leadership in My Life

   Introduction

Based on the Vietnam General Statistics Office indicated in 2012, interventional tourist visit Vietnam has been running trend more than doubling from 2.1 million in 2000 to 6.8 million in 2012. Meanwhile, there are more than doubled of domestic tourist from 11.7 million in 2000 to 23 million in 2009 (VGSO, 2012). And in the future, by 2020, international tourists in Vietnam will approximately increase from 10 to 10.5 million, and the economy will rise to US$18-19 million.  

A few short years, due to the Mekong Delta developed agri-tourism; it has been one of the fastest growing regions in the world. Mekong Delta is a region found in the southwestern area of Vietnam, and it is most important agricultural region in Vietnam. According to some research shows that Mekong Delta is dominated by floating markets, traditional food, fresh fruit, natural landscape and environment, which attracting a lot of tourists visit in Vietnam (Nguyen, 2014). Therefore, Mekong Delta is an absolute good region to develop agri-tourism based on its abundant resources.

However, there are some barriers and challenges for development of tourism that the    Mekong Delta should be consider. The changing demographics, the volatile economic conditions as well as the shifting economic patterns are all expected to put increased pressure on the Mekong Delta tourism development. In addition, local’s education level is relatively low in Mekong Delta, and they think that developing tourism will affect their own life and cause environmental contamination. Thus they may not contend with the government’s intentions to develop the area into a tourist destination. Also, once the place is developed as a tourism destination, the mass tourists enter the place, which will impact on environmental hygiene such as food waste and drop litter. Hence, managing environmental problem will be a barrier to the further development of Mekong Delta.  Furthermore, the safety and health issues, such as the global security concerns and the pandemics are some of the other things that the group given the responsibility of handling the tourism development activities in this Delta region will have to handle (Hoang & International Institute for Environment and Development, 2008).

On the other hand, climate change is very intractable challenge for developing tourism in Mekong Delta. According to Milly indicated in 2008, the climate variability and changes could directly impact agricultural productivity (Milly, 2008). In recently years, due to climate change, the sea level and runoff have increased, which means flood hazard is also increasing in Mekong Delta. Thus climate change is a huge challenge for the process of developing agri-tourism in Delta region. Also, local government has to take action to manage this challenge, which in order to attract more tourists in Mekong Delta.