The Impact of COVID-19 on Ethnic Business Households Involved in Tourism in Ninh Thuan, Vietnam

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The study shows a solid and orderly structure. The state of the art is duly justified and supports the need to carry out this research. Likewise, the methodology is adequate to meet the objectives. The results obtained are of high scientific interest and could be very useful to guide future rural development strategies. However, the manuscript needs to redefine certain sections, as well as the improvement and adaptation of some of its parts.

Some preliminary considerations:

Keywords: separate with semicolons.

It is not necessary to indicate the source of the figures, graphs and tables derived from your research, as it is understood that you are the author of these. In this case, you should only indicate the source of figures 1 and 2.

It is recommended not to comment on figures and graphs, as this will duplicate information.

It is necesary to include a blank space between tables/figures and the text following and preceding them.

It is not necessary to refer to the verb "to see" when indicating figures and tables in the text.

IMPORTANT: In the "discussion" section, the results obtained should not be shown again. This section should show the integrated interpretation of the results and, where appropriate, the comparison of the results with those of previous publications. It is a critical analysis of the results in accordance with the objectives and hypothesis, if applicable. The significance and validity of the results should be commented on, in accordance with the scopes defined for the work and the methods applied.

NOTE: no possible solutions to meet the target objective (3) are indicated: “recommend some solutions to deal with similar crises in the future towards the goal of sustainable tourism development”

Comments per page:

Page 3. In the first paragraph, citation 25 should read as follows: "Getz and Carlsen [25]” argue that many family... Use the same format for citation 24 (second paragraph).

Page 3. Repeated ideas appear in the Literature review: it is clear that family businesses are better able to cope with crisis situations.

Page 5. Include period (.) at the end of the title of table 1.

Page 11. Avoid expressions such as "Perhaps Anna Carr (2020) has a point" in scientific papers, as they detract from the professionalism of your work.

Page 12. Do not include citations in the conclusions section.

References

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Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Dear Authors:

I really appreciate your paper! Thank you very much for the opportunity of reading it. It sounds straightforward and simple, in the best sense of the word. Very topical not only in what means the impacts of COVID-19 but also, in general, the importance and effects of business households. 

My only suggestion is for you to improve the layout of the figures because some of them look naive and confusing (too much alphanumeric information).

Congratulations!

Author Response

Point: I really appreciate your paper! Thank you very much for the opportunity of reading it. It sounds straightforward and simple, in the best sense of the word. Very topical not only in what means the impacts of COVID-19 but also, in general, the importance and effects of business households.

My only suggestion is for you to improve the layout of the figures because some of them look naive and confusing (too much alphanumeric information).

 

Response: Thank you very much for your kind comments. We would like to respond to your comment that some of the figures seem naive. As we mentioned in the methodology section, we mainly use the qualitative method. For the quantitative part, we only conducted a small survey and used only frequencies to analyze the survey data. So the figures look simple, but we believe they convey the full result. However, we still have made a few minor adjustments to the layout of the figures.

Best regards.

Reviewer 3 Report

The paper deals with an interesting topic that has the potential for further discussion in the academic community. I agree with the authors that research on the effects of this pandemic on ethnic tourism business households is minimal. I think there is a need to explore how COVID-19 has affected ethnic minority tourism businesses and how they have responded to the crisis. In principle, the study has a balanced structure, and the various claims are empirically supported.
However, the authors would recommend expanding the theoretical framework of the issue to include the following aspects:
The COVID-19 pandemic has become an accelerator of change in almost every aspect of our lives, including ethnic tourism. The sustainability of ethnic tourism as part of cultural tourism is also tied to the well-thought-out marketing of the ethnic businesses that are the subject of the study.
I recommend to mention, within the theoretical background, the indispensable influence of thoughtful heritage marketing as an important factor contributing to the strengthening of the brand of small businesses. This will ultimately create a shield against the unfavourable effects of unexpected adverse events (e.g. Matlovičová K., Husárová M. 2017. Potential of the Heritage Marketing in Tourist Destinations Development. Cicva castle ruins case study. Folia Geographica 2017, Vol. 59, No 1, pp. 5-35; Mocák P., et al. 2022. 15-Minute City Concept as a Sustainable Urban Development Alternative. Folia Geographica 2022, 64/1, pp. 69-89).
I agree that ethnic tourism has become a powerful driver for strengthening the identities of ethnic groups by providing significant opportunities to showcase cultures and revive traditions, languages, and cultural pride. At the same time it has great potential to mitigate the adverse impacts of the economic crisis and subsequent poverty in local ethnic communities (see Matlovičová, K. et al.2022. Stimulating Poverty Alleviation by Developing Tourism in Marginalised Roma Communities: A Case Study of the Central Spiš Region (Slovakia), Land, 2022, 11(10), 1689.

From a methodological perspective, it would be appropriate to mention other existing methods of analysis such as the assessment of regional intellectual capital performance (e.g. Data Envelopment Analysis) aimed at introducing the methodological aspects of using DEA and its decomposition models to evaluate intellectual capital in regions.(see: Pachura, P., et al 2018. Identification of Intellectual Capital Performance Using Data Envelopment Analysis. Advances in Spatial Science, https:l/doi.orgll0.loo7/978-3-319-67029-4, Springer, pp. 115-130).

The above remarks can also be part of the conclusion, where the limitations of the study or further research opportunities in the field are considered.

My final recommendation to the editors is: to publish the article after minor corrections.

 

Author Response

Point: The authors would recommend expanding the theoretical framework of the issue to include the following aspects...

The above remarks can also be part of the conclusion, where the limitations of the study or further research opportunities in the field are considered.

Response: Thank you for your positive comments. Your suggestions are great. We have added these ideas, as you recommended, to further research in this area (lines 580-584).

Reviewer 4 Report

Very important topic. Conducted in a timely manner. Good research design. Date were presented clearly. The findings are important to a wide variety of areas or countries or ethnic people hoping to establish or modify tourism businesses so they are more sustainable. People will read this article and be influenced by its findings.

Author Response

Point 1: Very important topic. Conducted in a timely manner. Good research design. Date were presented clearly. The findings are important to a wide variety of areas or countries or ethnic people hoping to establish or modify tourism businesses so they are more sustainable. People will read this article and be influenced by its findings.

Response 1: Thanks for your kind comments. I also hope that the results of this study can contribute to the change of tourism development strategies toward more sustainability after covid-19 and revive people's deserving attention for business households, small businesses, and ethnic tourism.

Best regards.