CBT Vietnam - a Community Tourism Project by Capilano University Information

Capilano University (North Vancouver, BC, Canada) and the PATA Foundation have partnered in an effort to support a Community Tourism Training Project in Northern Vietnam. Our initiatives build from a successful five-year (2002-2007) CIDA-funded community tourism training project completed in two villages of the Sapa region by Capilano University and Hanoi Open University. The projects have been designed to provide practical tourism training to help ethnic minority communities in the Sapa Region improve their quality of life, reduce poverty, and help provide sustainable authentic cultural and nature based experiences for visitors to their communities. Some of the measurable results include: - Approximately 400 people involved in training. - Over 60 local tour guides from the Sapa Region trained. - Nearly 30 authentic cultural homestays have been set up in the the villages of Tavan, Taphin and Lao Chai. - Reduction in food born illnesses. - English and Vietnamese language has been improved in the villages. - Income / revenue generated by some individuals in the village has increase from US$500/year to US$2400/year. - Since the PATA Foundation began funding the project in Taphin in 2010 overnight visitor numbers have increased from 236 to 4985 in 2013. - Approximately 60 students and faculty from Canada have volunteered for the project in Vietnam. - Approximately 40 students from Hanoi Open University have volunteered fro the project. - Lo May from Taphin village was awarded a scholarship to study Tourism Management at Capilano University. She has also gone on to lead a project that raised over $12,500 for the development of a village market in Taphin. Her project has also won the top prize at LinkBC's Project Change. - 5 videos have been produced to share the work of the projects since 2005. The videos have over 10,000 online views (https://www.youtube.com/user/cbtvietnam). - Winner of the 2014 PATA Grand Award for Education and Training.