A multicriteria approach to assessing the sustainability of community-based ecotourism in Central Vietnam

Abstract

Nature exploration, or ecotourism, has been an essential part of tourism, and today takes on a much broader meaning beyond tourism that includes conserving nature and culture and improving people’s lives, especially in the indigenous community. Community-based ecotourism (CBET) has specific benefits closely related to the sustainability of natural ecosystems and community development. CBET can be defined as nature-based tourism, helping shape the types of tourism services, planning and developing destinations provided by communities directly. CBET is supposed to be a sustainable alternative to mass tourism by its potential benefits in Vietnam. The study aims to evaluate the sustainability of four CBET destinations in Central Vietnam through a sustainable ecotourism index (SEI) formed by applying the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) method. Based on the literature review, local people, and experts’ recommendations, a set of fourteen criteria categorized into five groups reflecting the critical attributes of the sustainable CBET that include environmental conservation, economic benefits, community participation, cultural preservation, and empowerment are analyzed. The raw data is obtained from in-depth interviews with 21 experts and 42 households. After normalizing, the results indicate that out of four CBET destinations, one is identified as high sustainability (SEI>4.2), two are neutral (3.4<SEI<4.2), and one is lower than (SEI<3.4). These findings provide implications for extending the AHP theory in tourism and policy implications toward sustainable development in future tourism.