Heritage Tourism: Vietnam and Asia

This book provides an overview of research and best practices associated with heritage tourism, with a particular focus on Vietnam, in conversation with heritage tourism in other Asian contexts. These include Iran in the Middle East, Sri Lanka in South Asia, Japan and China in East Asia, Thailand in Southeast Asia, and Brunei and the Philippines in the South Pacific. By delving into crucial questions and challenges relating to cultural innovation, preservation, and authenticity, it offers key lessons for policy-making and theorisation which not only contribute to understanding and improving heritage tourism in Vietnam, specifically, and in Asia more broadly, but also inform efforts to preserve and regenerate both natural and cultural heritage on a global scale. It is relevant to researchers and student communities working within areas of heritage, sustainability, tourism, geography, and in Asian studies.

V. Dao Truong is an assistant professor of tourism in Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, Universiti Brunei Darussalam, and an affiliated researcher in Tourism Research in Economic Environs and Society (TRESS), North-West University, South Africa. Dao serves as an associate editor for Journal of Social Marketing and an editorial board member for Tourism Planning & Development, International Review on Public and Non-profit Marketing, Social Marketing Quarterly, Economia Corpernicana, and Equilibrium.

David W. Knight is a Center for Collaborative Conservation Fellow and co-Director of the US-China Lab for Destination Development at Colorado State University. Since 2015, he has held intermittent international positions including visiting scholar and affiliate faculty (Associate Professor) at Central China Normal University in Hubei, China. His multi-disciplinary research explores tourism-linked empowerment, poverty alleviation, and destination resilience from the resident perspective, informing tourism planning and sustainability associated with National Parks, Chinese tourist behavior, marine protected areas, UNESCO World Heritage sites, and rural regeneration.