A presentation mad during a World Parks Congress event "Welcome Visitors: Making Tourism Work for Protected Areas and Sustainable Development: Part 1 – Critical Success Factors" that took place on 17 November 2014 in Sydney, Australia. Supported by the IUCN WCPA Tourism and Protected Areas Specialist Group and UNDP

1. Tourism on the Fast Track: Challenges for Sustainability and
Development in Phong Nha – Ke Bang National Park, Central
Vietnam
Anna Hübner1, Pham Thi Lien
Hoa1, Dinh Huy Tri2, Vo Van Tri2
1 Gesellschaft für Internationale
Zusammenarbeit GmbH (GIZ)
2 Phong Nha – Ke Bang NP Management
Board
We kindly acknowledge the support of
the Phong Nha – Ke Bang NP
Management Board, the Provincial
People’s Committee of Quang Binh, the
KfW Development Bank and other
partner institutions in the ‘Nature
Conservation and Sustainable
Management of Natural Resources
Management in the Phong Nha – Ke
Bang National Park Region’ Project.
Stream 5: Reconciling Development Challenges
Mainstreaming Solutions for Protected Area Tourism, Part I

2. Why/ What?
c
• PAs are important aspects within the travel decision-making
• Different expectations on Parks and their meaning by both
visitors and other stakeholders involved in tourism
 Different viewpoints and considerations about ´sound´
tourism development
• Cannot ´profile´ a best practice, but through this case delineating
critical (´balance´) factors which may foster integration of
tourism development into nature conservation and local benefit
sharing
© Bui Quang Thinh

3. Tourism on the Fast Track
• UNESCO Natural World Heritage Site
• Main visitor attractions: caves, karst landscape,
(biodiversity)
• ~90% domestic visitors
• Communities around the Park among the poorest in
the country, lack of alternative income sources
• Tourism considered one of the (future) economic
drivers of the Province
© British Cave Association

4. Revenue Sources
• Publicly financed, but
Tourism Centre self-financing
through ticket sales and other
charges
• Park budget based on
´Provincial Tax´ income
Partnerships
• Cave site lease: 2% annual
forest renting fee
• Concessions for hiking
routes to cave sites
• Environmental fee on
selected tours within the PA
© British Cave Association
Challenges
• Gaps in lease agreements
• Human capacity
• Transparency of expenses
• Conflicting stakeholder interests
• Data
© Bui Quang Thinh
© Li Migura

5. Critical Success Factors and Challenges for Reconciling Development in PNKB ?
• Coordination between the PA and the Provincial decision-makers
• Awareness raising and capacity building with provincial leadership
• Standard concession agreements and their monitoring
Balancing
Management/Decision-makers´ values
WHS and local decision-makers´ values
Visitors´ values
local economic development and external
drivers and leakage

6. Challenges for Sustainability and Development
How does this case contribute
to showcasing Best Practice?
• how PAs still struggle in balancing tourism developments and
conservation/local benefits
• extent to which tourism development is also dependent on political
decision-makers and visitor demands
• the extent to which a WHS title is also considered a recognition of needs
for nature conservation
• high brand value doesn´t necessarily follow recognition of a destination’s
long-term sustainability
• PNKB can financially sustain its activities by tourism income alone, but
financial mechanisms have so far not clearly contributed to resolving
development challenges surrounding the Park area

7. Conclusion
• PNKB recognized driver for development and highly recognized within Quang Binh and Vietnam,
but development criteria, also those which surround a Park’s population (and its biodiversity) are
often neglected
• To understand the role of PAs for reconciling development challenges, need to understand meaning
of a PA and the meaning of ‘development’ and it´s impacts on a PA of different stakeholder cultures
• seemingly financial sustainability doesn´t automatically lead to (better) conservation inputs
Thank you.