This brief from CDKN – Advancing Green Rrowth in the Tourism Sector: The Case of Hue, Vietnam – explores the opportunities and trade-offs encountered by government agencies, residents and tourism-related businesses in the City of Hue as they navigated the choices available. It captures lessons learned from the project for the benefit of other cities facing similar options.
Key messages of the report:
- Sustainable tourism development in the city of Hue, Vietnam is heavily influenced by the national government framework. This higher-level policy guidance was adapted to suit the city’s local conditions.
- A participatory local process resulted in the idea of promoting ‘garden houses’ as a viable climate mitigation option, which would also enhance tourism. This has yielded a number of environmental, economic and cultural benefits for Hue.
- Apart from the environmental benefits provided by garden houses, their promotion paved the way for leveraging other low carbon development initiatives such as the use of non-motorised transport.
- The direction of Hue’s development highlights the importance of a vision for sustainable growth and more importantly, of a champion who will guide the city toward its vision.
- This very positive local story nonetheless highlights some of the tensions and trade-offs around green tourism: namely, that local initiatives may address emissions in situ, but not the emissions produced by tourists as they travel to the locality.