SOCIO CULTURAL IMPACTS OF TOURISM DEVELOPMENT ON LOCAL COMMUNITY A CASE STUDY OF DONG HOA HIEP VILLAGE, CAI BE DISTRICT, TIEN GIANG PROVINCE, VIETNAM

Abstract

This research investigated the socio-cultural impacts of tourism development on local community at Dong Hoa Hiep village, Tien Giang Province, Vietnam. The study was designed to examine residents’ opinions about socio-cultural impacts of tourism development by five Likert scale surveyed questionnaires, indepth interviews and site observations.The questionnaires carried out a total of 400 local representative villagers used in statistical analyses. The study revealed that tourism development enhanced both positive and negative socio-cultural impacts on local communities, whereas the benefits of tourism overweighed its costs. The positive impacts were recognized such as heightening pride and appreciation of their community identify, preserving traditional festivals, and local cuisines, promoting cultural exchanges, improving in general infrastructures, and increasing the quality of life of local people, while the negative impacts were seen the forgotten of milk cracker* traditional handicrafts due to high cost of raw materials and consumption’s outputs lacking, the breakdown of traditional structures and the shortage of agricultural labor forces, the restoration using inappropriate original materials by owners in few ancient houses without doing tourism business because of the high price of original woods and the cost of craftsmen, and the insistence of some children and vendors on tourists.