Can Tourism Promote Inclusive Growth? Supply Chains, Ownership and Employment in Ha Long Bay, Vietnam

Abstract

Inclusive growth is contested yet adopted by the World Bank to reduce poverty and inequality through rapid economic growth. Research has tested inclusive growth in sectors including agriculture, but few studies apply it to tourism which is significant for many developing countries. The paper interrogates tourism-led inclusive growth: supply chains, economic linkages/leakage, ownership, employment and expenditure. It draws from fieldwork in Vietnam where tourism has rapidly developed with partial economic benefits for local communities, but does not appear to fall within the inclusive growth paradigm. It is unclear if tourism-led growth will become any more inclusive in the short-to-medium term.

Tourism-Dependent Small Islands, Inclusive Growth, and the Blue Economy

“…Tourism-led inclusive growth, if effectively carried out, has two main compo-nents: maximizing economic linkages to the local economy and minimizing economic leakage off island, as demonstrated by Hampton and Jeyacheya's work in Southeast Asia. 7 First, we consider economic linkages, particularly backward linkages connecting tourism demand from hotels to the source of the supply of products, such as food, furniture, linens, hotel-room fittings, etc. Let's take food as an example: a large tourist hotel in the Bahamas will require many hundreds of kilograms of food each week, of which 90% is likely to be imported from the US.…”

Economic sustainability? Examining the linkages and leakages between agriculture and hotels in Bhutan

“…A study in Tuscany (Ferrari, Jiménez, & Secondi, ) discovered that tourism expenditures in agriculture can motivate an overall higher demand for local food products and an increase in value added for the local economy. In Ha Long Bay, Vietnam, leakages are associated with the extended supply chains of the increasing number of national firms that bypass local suppliers in favour of national chains (Hampton, Jeyacheya, & Long, ).…”

Institutional Qualities of Inclusive Environmental Management in Sustainable Economic Development

“…Particular emphasis is put on institutional support of inclusive development, which should ensure balance between production activities and the distribution of income. The process of managerial decision-making during the formation of an inclusive development strategy is studied in the work of Hampton, Jeyacheya and Long [3]. Attention in this study is paid to the processes in tourism activities, namely: supply chains, economic relations, property, employment and expenses.…”