Tourism Impacts in Hoi An

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2.1.2 Negative Impacts

The town has depended on horticulture, fishing, exchange and other financial exercise before tourism. But in recent times the town has now changed its dependence completely in tourism activities. While tourism revenues have contributed to an increase in income but at the same time cost of living has gone high. As with the growth in tourism the demands of commodities have also gone high product prices have also gone up high as tourists don’t mind paying more comparing to the local resident who has to suffer from those rising prices. .(Engelhardt 2008)

2.2 SOCIAL IMPACTS OF TOURISM IN THE HERITAGE CITY

2.2.1Positive impacts of tourism in Hoi An

With economic development and western influences hoi an has experienced an enormous change despite its challenge of protecting the heritage and authenticity from the effect of modern world. Although Hoi An is an extremely popular destination with tourists the city has been able to maintain calmness and peace. Cars are restricted in the main city area, which turns out to be relief for eardrums from the noise of vehicles .Hoi an is the city of gastronomy. It’s a hub for food lovers. The city offers the large choices of native culinary options as well as other regional varieties. It also hosts the culinary classes for visitors.(chartier 2015) As to promote the local cuisines Hoi An hosts The Hoi An international food festival where chef from different regions around the world will showcase their culinary art. Visitors will have chance to prepare such native dishes under fully guidance of chefs. The organizers believe that it will be the golden opportunity to promote the city’s beauty cuisine and culture throughout the world.(Tang 2016) The Heritage city is also popular for its numerous festivals .On the 14th day of every lunar month, the heritage town of Hoi An switches off its lights and closes to the vehicle traffic and the old town turns bright and eye pleasing into jubilant atmosphere with multi-coloured lanterns and crowd of large visitors who’ve come to see the full moon lantern festival. Increasingly the number of visitors to attend the cultural festival has been growing over the years.

2.2.2NEGATIVE IMPACTS of tourism on Hoi An

Though the tourism industry has brought lots of benefits at the same time the traditions and local cultures are fading away in the name of earning and tourism business. The attractions of the tourism industry are drawing young people. The attraction from the tourism has been drawing away the young generations from their traditional and local occupations. Increasing young people are no more interested to inherit their family occupation to become fisherman; increasingly they are turning their ways in learning tourism related skills. The old and historical buildings have turned into a living museum and commercial shops. Only few shops catering to local resident are there at the present, family residency and their living environment has been reduced heavily leaving it on lease on for commercial purpose. Many local residents have therefore moved to the outskirts of the city. Though local business people and local government have viewed it positively but the many visitors blame the city losing its life, interest and authenticity. Changes have occurred in lifestyle of people and within the households. Cultural belief have also now changed while traditionally many shop houses had ancestral worshiping space but now it’s all been replaced for commercialization by shop owners. Traditional games and entertainment activities are now all replaced with internet café and other foreign influences. Family relations have also been affected by the growing participation on business activities as the members hardly can have spare time for families as restaurants, tailoring services and other activities required long hours. While restoring the old buildings traditional style is no more being applied hence the buildings have been losing their importance. (Engelhardt 2008)

With the growing tourists growing number of crime rates also have been recorded. With every year crime rates have been doubling in number. Many cases of pick pocketing, robbery and substance abuse have been reported. With most criminal activities beings occurred in the festive period such as new year and lantern festival and most of victims being the tourist.(Nguyen 2015)

2.3 ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACTS OF TOURISIM ON THE HERITAGE CITY HOI AN

2.3.1 Positive impacts

Hoi An has become a major tourism hub in Vietnam. The boom in tourism has contributed to increase in wealth and development of the heritage city. At the same time it has also resulted in increasing living cost and heaps of environment problems. To cope up with the problems the Vietnamese government has come up with various strategies and plans to solve the existing problems. They have come up with partnership between the government, Portland state university (PSU) and UN-H ABITAT. They have projected the major plan to turn the heritage city hoi an into the Vietnams first environmentally sustainable city or eco city by the year 2020 which would be the major accomplishment for Vietnam in the sector of environmental conservation and sustainability. This project aims to strike the balance between economic investment and environmental protection (Jacobs 2013)

2.3.2 Negative impacts

Due to the increase in tourism activities and ever growing demands of population the government has been carrying out various developmental activities the hydro power dams on the Vu Gia -Thu Bon river system has become the obstacle in sedimentation downstream hence it has led to the severe erosion that could totally wipe out the popular coast line and beaches of Hoi An that plays an important role in generating the major revenue for Hoi An. (Nguyen 2015) At the same time climate change and global warming has made it worst as Hoi An has been constantly been affected by the rise in sea level which had led to loss of land and erosion and if it continues to go on in such a way then its no far that the Hoi An beaches will become no more the attractive tourist destination as it is today.(Nelson 2015)

Tourism in Hoi An not only depends on the cultural activities and heritage sites but also on the exotic and mesmerizing natural sites. But in recent times as tourism grew various infrastructure were developed factories were setup, rapid development of resorts , hotels and cruises took place in attempt to accommodate the large number of tourist visiting the place. But in contrary