Green Nature or Green Fantasies: Representations of Ecotourism in Vietnam

Abstract

Although ecotourism is believed to help reduce the negative effects of vacationing inflicted on the natural world, it is still an ambiguous concept. The contentious interpretations of the term thus affect not only ecotourism in practice but also ecotourism policy development. This research article provides a qualitative analysis of how ecotourism is framed in Vietnamese online advertisements and news media coverage. The article’s theoretical underpinnings were gleaned via a review of the relevant literature. This was followed by a thematic analysis of online advertisements for thirty national parks and seventeen ecotourism sites/resorts in Vietnam. The article also features a thorough analysis of -related content from the country’s five most popular online newspapers. The research findings uncovered three major patterns of ecotourism representation in Vietnam: purely ecological tourism in national parks, nature-based tourism that is combined with anthropogenic landscapes as a form of pseudo-ecotourism in tourism resorts, and emerging checking-in hotspots at spontaneous sites. These patterns differ not only in the extent to which they correspond to the core elements of ecotourism but also in their perspectives of nature and the human–nature relationship. The implications of the three patterns for future ecotourism development in Vietnam, particularly concerns regarding policymaking and mismanagement, are discussed in the paper’s conclusions.