In March 2013 the ESRT Programme officially kicked-off the Content Development Phase of its highly anticipated Responsible Tourism Awareness Raising Programme.
Guided by the recently released ESRT Responsible Tourism Awareness Raising Strategy (http:// awarenessstrategy.esrt.vn), the Responsible Tourism Awareness Raising Programme will implement a range of strategies designed to increase understanding and awareness of Responsible Tourism principles and practices in Vietnam, with the desired outcome being to generate positive changes in thinking and action of tourism providers and consumers to better ensure sustainable social, environmental and economic benefits. To ensure local relevancy in design and implementation, local experts have been engaged to assist develop contents for the awareness raising programme.
The first action of the Responsible Tourism Awareness Raising rank is the production of a series of Responsible Tourism Fact Sheets. The Fact Sheets will aim to provide tourism stakeholders with the core facts about Responsible Tourism with a particular focus on Vietnam - What is Responsible Tourism? Why do we need Responsible Tourism? What are its benefits? What the impacts are of poorly planned and managed tourism in Vietnam within specific subsectors such as accommodation, restaurants & cafes, and tours? And what are some specific principles and practices that we can implement to create a more sustainable future for tourism in Vietnam?
A number of Responsible Tourism Good Practice Guides will also be developed that will specifically target Village Tourism Destination Management Authorities and Communities, Cultural Heritage Site Managers and Protected Area Managers, in order to assist them to mainstream Responsible Tourism considerations into their key activities.
To generate dialogue and discussion within the Vietnamese structural and political environment, ESRT will step up its support of targeted tourism conferences, seminars and workshops in order to deliver its Responsible Tourism message. Already completed are the first Annual Conference on Responsible Tourism in 2012, and its support to the Vietnam International Travel Mart 2013 Conference to deliver a programme featuring a range of Responsible Tourism topics and themes. End of 2013, the 2nd Annual Conference on Responsible Tourism will be held.
Following from this, a range of ongoing Y2 day to 1 day workshops on Responsible Tourism will be implemented for the public and private sector that are specifically designed to build the capacity of key stakeholders on how to implement Responsible Tourism provisions within their key activities.
To complete the set, a range of Responsible Tourism posters for workplaces, a Responsible Tourism slideshow with a Responsible Tourism message are also all lined up for production and expected to become publically available for download from the ESRT website later in the year.