Spatial Justice and Post-Development Perspectives on Community-Based Tourism: Investment Disparities and Climate-Induced Migration in Vietnam

Abstract

Community-Based Tourism (CBT) refers to forms of tourism owned and managed by local communities, designed to enhance participation, empowerment, and equitable benefit-sharing. This study investigates how climate-induced migration and donor investment disparities shape the uneven development of CBT across Vietnam. The research pursues three aims: (1) to evaluate how macro- and micro-level funding structures influence CBT readiness; (2) to analyze how spatial justice and post-development critique illuminate structural inequalities in tourism investment; and (3) to assess the implications for climate-vulnerable and ethnic minority communities, including their underrepresentation in CBT research and policy discourse. Methodologically, the study undertakes a systematic review of CBT literature (2014–2025), a thematic analysis of donor and government reports (World Bank, ADB, IFAD), and an estimation of regional funding flows using narrative coding and text-based pattern analysis. Findings reveal a persistent geographic and institutional bias toward the Southern Mekong Delta, which benefits from climate-resilience projects and tourism-specific investments, while Northern Highlands regions remain marginalized, receiving only poverty-focused funding. The paper contributes by integrating spatial justice and post-development critique into tourism studies, demonstrating how donor-led “resilience” agendas can inadvertently reinforce spatial inequalities, and offering policy recommendations for more equitable CBT planning, funding, and scholarly attention across Vietnam’s diverse regions.

1. Introduction

Community-Based Tourism (CBT) has emerged as both a development paradigm and a localized response to socio-ecological disruptions, particularly in climate-vulnerable regions of the Global South1 (Phuong et al., 2020). CBT is commonly defined as tourism that is owned and managed by local communities, with an emphasis on participation, empowerment, and equitable benefit-sharing (Zielinski et al., 2020). In Vietnam, CBT is increasingly promoted as an alternative livelihood strategy for climate-affected and economically marginalized communities. However, the effectiveness of CBT is contingent on more than grassroots initiative—it is shaped by broader patterns of investment, infrastructure, governance, and theoretical assumptions about development.

Scholarly support for CBT often draws from sustainability and resilience discourses. Resilience theory (Holling, 1973; Folke, 2006) emphasizes socio-economic systems’ adaptive capacities—especially relevant for tourism-dependent communities facing climate migration. Brown and Westaway (2011) emphasizes that resilience in community-based tourism emerges from local actors’ ability to navigate social thresholds, adapt to change, and maintain livelihood sustainability amid external shocks. It highlights the importance of strategic flexibility in navigating complex socio-environmental disruptions, allowing tourism systems to adjust to uncertainty while maintaining operational continuity (Sushil, 2015). Sustainability theories, particularly Ostrom’s (2009) Socio-Ecological Systems (SES) framework, emphasize the interconnectedness of ecological integrity and institutional adaptability, offering insight into how tourism can respond to migration-induced change (Lacitignola et al., 2007). These frameworks reveal how CBT can contribute to both environmental resilience and economic inclusion.

Climate-induced displacement in Vietnam is pushing households to diversify away from climate-sensitive agriculture (Le & Vo, 2020; Poelma et al., 2021; Tran et al., 2024). Donors respond by financing “resilience” infrastructure and livelihood transitions in the most visible risk hot-spots (e.g., MD-ICRSL in the Mekong), which in turn shapes where Community-Based Tourism (CBT) can realistically take root. Thus, climate migration does not only create need for alternative livelihoods; it also reconfigures the spatial pattern of investment that enables CBT—advantaging infrastructure-ready provinces and sidelining remote ethnic-minority regions. This paper traces that chain—from climate risk to donor allocation to CBT readiness—to explain the observed regional imbalance in Vietnam’s CBT landscape.

However, while resilience and sustainability approaches explain adaptive responses to disruption, they do not adequately address the systemic disparities embedded in funding distribution, policy visibility, or scholarly attention across regions. The current literature lacks a critical interrogation of why certain regions receive persistent investment and visibility while others remain marginalized—despite demonstrated need or potential.

To fill this gap, this study introduces a combined theoretical lens of spatial justice and post-development critique. Spatial justice theory (Soja, 2010; Lefebvre, 1974/1991) provides tools for examining how geographic inequalities are produced through institutional structures and donor preferences. It exposes how tourism infrastructure, funding priorities, and even scholarly discourse are not evenly distributed, but rather concentrated in spatially “legible” regions like the Mekong Delta. In parallel, post-development theory (Escobar, 1995; Sachs, 1992) critiques the underlying logic of externally imposed development models. It asks who defines development, whose needs are prioritized, and whose knowledge systems are excluded—questions that are essential for understanding the top-down structure of CBT implementation in Vietnam.

Vietnam’s national climate strategy and external funding mechanisms have disproportionately targeted the Mekong Delta, a region with visible climate vulnerability and infrastructural readiness. In contrast, Northern ethnic minority regions—despite chronic poverty and tourism potential—remain underfunded and under-represented in both practice and scholarship. This paper addresses this gap by analysing the intersection of investment flows, regional CBT readiness, and the epistemic visibility of different Vietnamese regions in CBT research.

2. Methods

2.1. Research Design

This study adopts a critical qualitative research design grounded in spatial justice theory (Soja, 2010) and post-development critique (Escobar, 1995), aiming to uncover how patterns of investment reflect structural and geographic inequalities in Community-Based Tourism (CBT) development across Vietnam. Rather than assessing CBT projects solely on the basis of effectiveness or success, this study interrogates which regions are prioritized by national and international funding actors, and how these priorities shape both practical implementation and academic representation.

Previous scholarship on CBT in Vietnam has emphasized entrepreneurship development and community participation (Khantee & Jeerapattanatorn, 2023), but tends to treat underrepresentation of certain regions—such as the Northern Highlands—as either logistical or readiness-related. This study challenges that assumption by exploring how investment decisions reflect systemic spatial biases, thereby influencing the visibility, feasibility, and scholarly attention afforded to CBT in different regions.

To identify these disparities, this study engages in a theory-informed mapping of funding flows across four regional categories (Northern Highlands, Central Vietnam, Mekong Delta/Southern, and Peri-Urban South). In doing so, it examines the role of both macro-level funders (e.g., World Bank, ADB) and micro-level institutions (e.g., IFAD) in shaping CBT infrastructure and local empowerment. This comparative framing draws on Soja’s (2010) emphasis on spatial inequality and Escobar’s (1995) critique of externally imposed development agendas.

Additionally, the design includes a secondary critical review of literature and institutional reports to assess how knowledge production mirrors investment flows. If funding is concentrated in the Mekong region, and most CBT case studies are drawn from the same area, the paper argues that this represents not only a practical imbalance but also an epistemic injustice—a selective amplification of success narratives from already privileged regions.

2.2. Research Questions

Guided by these theoretical concerns, the study poses the following questions:

Main Research Question:

How does climate-induced migration, mediated through donor investment flows and systemic funding structures, shape spatial inequalities in the development, visibility, and effectiveness of Community-Based Tourism (CBT) initiatives in Vietnam?

Subsidiary Questions:

• In what ways do the distribution and flexibility of donor investments contribute to regional disparities in CBT readiness—particularly the privileging of the Mekong Delta over Northern ethnic minority regions?
• How do spatial justice and post-development perspectives help explain why donor priorities reinforce structural inequalities rather than alleviating them?
• How does the epistemic visibility of CBT scholarship follow donor concentration, and what strategies (e.g., participatory or field-based research) could better represent marginalized communities in the Northern Highlands?

2.3. Research Aims

The purpose of this section is to outline the specific objectives that guide the study. In particular, the research aims to investigate how climate-induced migration interacts with donor investment and tourism development, while also applying critical theoretical perspectives to assess equity and visibility in Vietnamese Community-Based Tourism (CBT).

This study: 1. Examines how climate-induced migration reshapes donor investment flows in Vietnam and how these flows determine regional disparities in Community-Based Tourism (CBT) readiness; 2. Applies spatial justice and post-development theory to critically assess how donor priorities reinforce structural inequalities, privileging the Mekong Delta while marginalizing Northern ethnic minority regions; and 3. Evaluates the epistemic visibility of CBT research by analysing how scholarly narratives follow funding concentration, and proposes more inclusive, participatory approaches that foreground marginalized communities’ perspectives.

2.4. Data Sources and Collection

Search Strategy/Data Handling

To address these questions, the research undertook a multi-pronged data collection approach combining thematic literature synthesis, document analysis, and LLM-assisted content classification.

First, a targeted literature review of peer-reviewed CBT research in Vietnam from 2014 to July 2025 was conducted. Inclusion criteria focused on case studies, investment analysis, and regional assessments. Key empirical contributions (e.g., Khantee & Jeerapattanatorn, 2023; Duong, 2025) were analyzed in relation to funding patterns, community readiness, and participatory governance. Where articles lacked explicit CBT framing but addressed related issues—such as tourism infrastructure, social capital, or entrepreneurship—they were evaluated through a CBT-relevant lens.

Searches: Scopus, Web of Science, Google Scholar, ERIC. Core strings combined with AND/OR and wildcard variants: “Community-Based Tourism” OR CBT AND Vietnam; (resilience or “livelihood diversification”); (ethnic or minority or highland); (investment or funding or IFAD or “World Bank” or ADB). Empirical case studies or portfolio/finance analyses on Vietnam were included based on data 2014–July 2025 English/Vietnamese. Non-Vietnam, pure marketing/management without community or finance content were excluded. Screening proceeds from titles/abstracts to full texts; snowballing from reference lists (Zielinski et al., 2020).

Second, development finance documents and program reports were examined, including those from the World Bank, Asian Development Bank (ADB), International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), and the Vietnamese Ministry of Planning and Investment. Projects were assessed for their stated objectives, target regions, and scale of investment, with a focus on tourism, infrastructure, rural development, and climate resilience.

To facilitate regional comparison, projects were categorized into four geospatial zones, and investment amounts were organized by development focus (e.g., infrastructure, training, poverty alleviation). Due to the absence of consistent numeric data across regions, projects were evaluated through narrative attribution and keyword-coded summaries, with classifications supported by critical interpretation rather than simple quantification.

LLM-assisted coding-A large-language-model (ChatGPT-4.5) was used as an assistive text-mining tool to 1. to triage long donor PDFs into region-tagged excerpts, 2. surface repeated phrases for coding (e.g., “market access,” “climate resilience,” province names), and 3. draft visual summaries (pie charts/tables) that were rebuilt and checked by the author. Public reports were copied into a local corpus; no private or paywalled materials were uploaded to external services. All region labels and project attributions were manually verified against the original documents. A scripted Python pipeline was considered; given heterogeneous report formats and the qualitative nature of the classification, a researcher-directed LLM workflow with manual verification was the more efficient option for this study. The LLM analysis was embedded within a researcher-directed framework, grounded in human ethical review and manual verification (Marshall & Naff, 2024).

Estimation procedure. Where official documents lacked region-level amounts, the study: (1) identified each project’s primary beneficiary region(s) from appraisal/design texts; (2) recorded dollar values when region splits were reported; (3) for multi-region projects without splits, allocated shares by stated coverage (e.g., “9 Mekong provinces”) or, if absent, by equal shares; (4) triangulated totals against donor portfolio summaries for Vietnam; and (5) flagged such entries as Estimated in tables/figures. Percentages in

Table 1. Comparative Investment Analysis (IFAD vs. World Bank & ADB) (1993–2025) Note: These values are estimates based on triangulated data and methodology detailed in the Estimation Procedure section. Source: Author’s compilation from IFAD (2023b), World Bank (2023), ADB (2023).

Region	Investment Focus	Total Amount Invested (USD)
World Bank	Large-scale infrastructure, economic integration, climate resilience	US $25.9 Billion
Asian Development Bank (ADB)	Transport infrastructure, clean energy, vocational training, rural development, climate resilience	US $18 Billion
IFAD	Small-scale rural infrastructure, livelihood diversification, community-led empowerment	US $788 Million

,

Table 2. Regional distribution of IFAD funding in Vietnam, 2002–2023 (estimated shares). Note: Percentages are derived from project documents using the estimation procedure in Section 2.4. Source: Author’s compilation from IFAD project portfolio reports (2002–2023).

Region	Percentage %	Amount (Million USD)
Mekong Delta (Southern)	40	168.20
Central Vietnam	22.2	97.56
Northern Highlands	23.8	87.46
Southern Peri-urban/Urban	14.0	67.28

and

Table 3. National Level Fund Distribution with Locations (2016–2024). Note: These values are estimates based on triangulated data and methodology detailed in the Estimation Procedure section. Source: Author’s compilation from Vietnamese Ministry of Planning and Investment, World Bank (2016), ADB (2023).

Region (with Locations)	Percentage %	Funding Amount (Million USD)
Mekong Delta (Can Tho, Ben tre)	56.5	560
Central Vietnam (Hue, Da Nang)	23.4	232
Northern Highlands (Ha Giang, Dien Bien)	5.0	50
National or Multi-regional	15.1	150

are therefore triangulated estimates rather than audited figures.

2.5. Methodology: Theoretical Framing

Tourism systems’ ability to adapt to climate-induced migration has been widely analyzed through frameworks such as the Sustainable Livelihoods Approach (Kunjuraman, 2022) and Socio-Ecological Systems Theory (Ostrom, 2009), both of which highlight how tourism contributes to resilience while depending on socio-environmental transformations. In Vietnam, rural-to-urban migration—driven by climate stress and industrialization—has reshaped peri-urban spaces such as Cần Thơ and Ho Chi Minh City (Garschagen et al., 2011). The state’s 2009 agricultural land-use plan further accelerated transitions from rice farming to industrial labor, underscoring the urgency of integrating tourism into broader livelihood diversification strategies.

Structured CBT programs can support this transition if designed with inclusive governance, professional training, and cross-sector collaboration. Local institutions such as the Mekong Delta Development Research Institute (MDI, 2022) have also provided training and research support, but these initiatives remain under-recognized compared to macro-donor programs. Yet without careful management, CBT risks undermining agriculture, cultural authenticity, and community cohesion. Case studies reflect these tensions: in Bến Tre’s Thanh Phú district, IFAD-supported agritourism models integrate climate adaptation; in Cần Thơ, the Floating Market shows economic potential but faces overcrowding and environmental degradation; and in Sa Pa, rapid tourism growth has displaced traditional farming practices (T. Y. C. Nguyen et al., 2025). These examples illustrate that CBT outcomes must be evaluated beyond economic metrics, through the lenses of spatial justice, resilience, and community empowerment.

Accordingly, this study applies spatial justice to analyze how donor preferences shape regional CBT readiness, and post-development critique to interrogate the assumptions embedded in externally imposed models. This combined framing enables a critical assessment of how funding decisions both reflect and reproduce socio-spatial inequalities in Vietnam’s tourism landscape. This section operationalizes spatial justice and post-development critique to analyze how funding decisions both reflect and reproduce socio-spatial inequalities in Vietnam’s tourism landscape. I, therefore, treat “funding” not as a neutral input but as a spatial decision rule that sorts regions into investable and non-investable categories—a rule evaluated through the integrated spatial-justice/post-development lens.

2.6. Regional Investment Categorization and Funding Analysis

This study evaluates national and international CBT-related investments through a regionalized analysis informed by spatial justice theory (Soja, 2010). Funding is not treated as a neutral economic input but as a spatial and institutional choice that reflects priorities, exclusions, and structural inequalities. The methodology categorizes Vietnam into four regions—Mekong Delta/Southern, Central Vietnam, Northern Highlands, and Southern Peri-urban/Urban—to assess geographic disparities in tourism investment.

Macro-level funding sources such as the World Bank and ADB were analyzed alongside micro-level programs from IFAD. Due to the lack of standardized regional reporting, project classifications were made using descriptive objectives from evaluation documents, including those addressing poverty reduction, agroforestry, enterprise support, climate resilience, and ecotourism. IFAD has supported 17 projects in Vietnam since 2002 totaling USD 788 million. Of this, USD 420.5 million was directly invested by IFAD as shown in Table 1. Funding allocations were inferred through project locations documented in official reports (IFAD, 2023b).

The Mekong Delta region includes provinces like Ben Tre and Tra Vinh, consistently referenced in IFAD’s climate-oriented programs (e.g., DBRP, IMPP, CSAT). Central Vietnam includes provinces such as Ha Tinh, Gia Lai, and Quang Binh. The Northern Highlands include Ha Giang, Cao Bang, and Bac Kan—areas with significant ethnic minority populations targeted for poverty alleviation (Ho & Nguyen, 2025). Southern Peri-Urban areas, such as Ho Chi Minh City and Binh Duong, are less commonly targeted by IFAD but receive major infrastructure funding from national and multilateral sources.

Complementary to this, national funding sources were also analyzed, including Ministry of Planning and Investment allocations and national budgets. A cross-analysis of donor reports and Vietnamese government development plans allowed estimation of regional investment emphasis. Projects were categorized by region, development aim, and donor type. While exact numeric disaggregation was unavailable for some multi-regional projects, critical classification based on primary beneficiaries provided useful approximations (IFAD, 2023a).

Data sources (peer-reviewed articles; World Bank/ADB/IFAD/MPI reports) were ingested into a local corpus; LLM-assisted triage and manual coding identified region tags, investment focus, and CBT-enabling content. When budgets were multi-regional, estimated shares were assigned (see Estimation Procedure). Analyses were reported across a four-region schema; outputs include Table 1, Table 2, Table 3,

Table 4. Comparison of Regional Needs and IFAD’s Common Projects. Source: Author’s compilation based on IFAD (2012, 2022, 2023b).

Regional Needs (Common Problems)	IFAD’s Common Project Investments
Limited entrepreneurship skills and inadequate infrastructure across all regions	Entrepreneurship support, rural enterprise development, basic infrastructure investment (IMPP, DBRP, DPRPR)

and

Table 5. Comparison of Region-Specific Needs and IFAD’s Specified Projects. Source: Author’s compilation based on IFAD (2012, 2022, 2023b).

Region	Region-Specific Needs	IFAD’s Region-Specific Investments
Northern Highlands	Freshwater shortage, financial literacy gaps, minority empowerment, negative perceptions of local tourism activities (street vending)	Infrastructure enhancement, ethnic minority empowerment, market integration, rural enterprise support (DPRPR, 3EM, DBRP)
Central Vietnam	Cultural misunderstandings, insufficient promotion of cultural heritage, inadequate facilities, environmental sustainability concerns, agro-economic competition	Agro-forestry development, sustainable agricultural practices, poverty alleviation for ethnic minorities (3PAD, TNSP)
Mekong Delta & Southern Peri-Urban	Gender-based pressures, ineffective marketing, socio-economic challenges (pollution, increased living costs, social issues), vulnerability to climate impacts	Market access enhancement, rural enterprise and eco-tourism development, climate adaptation and mangrove-based innovations (IMPP, DBRP, IFIA, CSAT)

and Figure 1 and Figure 2. The use of LLM here aligns with emerging standards for integrating generative technologies in qualitative research (Marshall & Naff, 2024).

3. Literature Review: Spatial Justice and Post-Development Critique

3.1. Spatial Justice and Development Disparities

The concept of spatial justice has emerged as a critical framework for analysing uneven development, territorial inequality, and the politics of place. Introduced by Edward Soja (2010), spatial justice expands upon Henri Lefebvre’s earlier work on the social production of space (Lefebvre, 1974/1991) by emphasizing how spatial configurations are not merely outcomes of economic and political processes but are integral to how power and inequality are produced and reproduced. Soja argues that justice is always spatial—that is, the distribution of resources, opportunities, and rights is inherently shaped by geography. In development contexts, spatial justice offers a means to assess how physical location and regional affiliation determine one’s access to infrastructure, services, and economic opportunities.

Lefebvre’s (1974/1991) The Production of Space laid the theoretical foundation by asserting that space is not a neutral container but is socially constructed and imbued with ideology and power. He famously described three modes of space: perceived (spatial practices), conceived (representations of space), and lived (spaces of representation). These distinctions enable scholars to evaluate how state planning, development funding, and donor interventions create disparities in spatial access and usage.

In tourism studies, spatial justice allows for a critical interrogation of how infrastructure, policy attention, and scholarly focus disproportionately favour some regions over others. For example, in Vietnam, the Mekong Delta region has received consistent investments from multilateral development banks like the World Bank and ADB, while the Northern Highlands, home to most of the country’s ethnic minorities, have been comparatively neglected (World Bank, 2016, 2022b, 2022c; ADB, 2023; and IFAD, 2022). Applying Soja’s (2010) framework to these patterns reveals how infrastructure development—while framed as a technical or logistical issue—is deeply political, reflecting systemic spatial preferences that reinforce existing inequalities. In this context, spatial injustice is not merely a question of resource scarcity but of representational erasure and institutional disregard.

Dikeç (2001) further develops the notion of “the spatial imagination,” emphasizing how ideas of justice are shaped by spatial practices and urban governance. He calls for more integrative approaches that combine social justice concerns with spatial analysis. For tourism development, this implies a need to assess how funding flows and policy frameworks prioritize spatially visible or economically strategic areas, often ignoring those that are geographically remote, ethnically diverse, or politically marginalized.

In the case of Community-Based Tourism (CBT) in Vietnam, spatial justice theory provides a powerful lens through which to assess why certain regions receive more attention and support. The dominance of CBT initiatives in the Southern and Central regions, particularly the Mekong Delta, can be interpreted not merely as a result of better readiness or climatic vulnerability, but as evidence of deeper structural preferences embedded in national and international development frameworks.

3.2. Post-Development Critique and Community Agency

While spatial justice helps explain where development happens, post-development theory interrogates the very foundations of how development is conceptualized and operationalized. Emerging in the 1990s as a critical response to mainstream development discourses, post-development scholars such as Arturo Escobar (1995) and Wolfgang Sachs (1992) argue that “development” is not a neutral or universally beneficial process. Rather, it is a discursive apparatus rooted in Western modernity, often imposed upon the Global South in ways that marginalize local knowledge systems, cultural autonomy, and alternative models of well-being.

In Encountering Development, Escobar (1995) deconstructs the history of development institutions, showing how the “Third World” was constructed through discourses of deficiency and progress. He critiques the dominance of expert-led, technocratic approaches that reduce complex social realities to quantifiable indicators and policy frameworks. This critique resonates strongly with CBT in Vietnam, where donor-led tourism projects often prioritize measurable outcomes—such as visitor numbers or infrastructure spending—over locally defined success, cultural sustainability, or empowerment.

Post-development theory offers critical insight into how CBT is frequently instrumentalized as a tool for poverty alleviation or climate adaptation, often without sufficient engagement with the communities it purports to serve. Development agencies may frame CBT as an “inclusive” solution, yet the planning, funding, and implementation processes are frequently top-down. Projects may be designed with limited local input, constrained by donor timelines and indicators. In such cases, CBT risks becoming a technocratic solution rather than a community-driven transformation.

Sachs (1992) and contributors to The Development Dictionary underscore that core development terms—such as “poverty,” “participation,” and even “sustainability”—carry ideological baggage and are often co-opted to justify interventions that reproduce dependency rather than autonomy. For CBT, this critique is particularly relevant: while it is promoted as a participatory approach, actual power over decision-making, revenue allocation, and marketing strategies often lies with external actors—government agencies, NGOs, or private sector intermediaries.

Ziai (2007) offers a nuanced analysis of post-development thinking, noting that while early versions were criticized for romanticizing localism or rejecting development altogether, more recent strands advocate for “alternatives to development” rather than an outright rejection. These alternatives emphasize autonomy, self-determination, and pluralism—values that align with the original spirit of CBT, which arose from efforts to give communities control over tourism processes and outcomes.

In the Vietnamese context, applying post-development theory entails scrutinizing how CBT is funded and represented. The dominance of the Mekong Delta in donor portfolios reflects not just climate risk but also donor preferences for visible, accessible, and “successful” projects. Meanwhile, ethnic minority regions in the Northern Highlands are rendered invisible or pathologized as backward, thus receiving funding for poverty alleviation but not tourism development. Post-development critique thus helps explain why these communities are marginalized—not because they lack potential, but because they fall outside the dominant development imaginary.

3.3. Integrative Framework for CBT in Vietnam

Existing CBT research in Vietnam often draws on resilience and sustainability theories to highlight communities’ adaptive capacity to socio-ecological disruption (Holling, 1973; Folke, 2006; Ostrom, 2009). These perspectives stress livelihood diversification and socio-ecological balance, yet they risk obscuring the structural inequities embedded in donor allocation and state planning.

To address this limitation, this study integrates spatial justice (Soja, 2010; Zielinski et al., 2020) with post-development critique (Escobar, 1995; Sachs, 1992) to assess how CBT investments may reproduce or challenge such inequities. Appendix A provides a comparative overview of resilience, sustainability/SES, spatial justice, and post-development critique in the Vietnamese CBT context.

To move beyond these limitations, this paper employs an integrated framework combining spatial justice and post-development critique. Spatial justice (Soja, 2010; Lefebvre, 1974/1991) emphasizes how geography is central to the distribution of opportunities, resources, and visibility. In Vietnam, this lens reveals why the Mekong Delta consistently receives investments from the World Bank, ADB, and IFAD, while Northern Highlands provinces with large ethnic minority populations remain structurally excluded (World Bank, 2016; IFAD, 2022). Post-development critique (Escobar, 1995; Sachs, 1992) interrogates the discursive and institutional logics that shape development itself: who defines the priorities, whose knowledge is valued, and which communities are silenced.

Taken together, the two theories offer complementary insights. Spatial justice identifies where inequities occur, while post-development asks why donor frameworks systematically reproduce them. This integrated lens allows us to re-examine resilience not as a neutral goal but as a distributive claim, exposing how “resilience” projects—such as Mekong flood defense corridors—may exacerbate peripheral marginalization rather than alleviate it. By applying this framework, the study fills a gap in CBT research, which has often treated uneven regional development as a matter of “readiness” rather than a product of donor logics, spatial bias, and epistemic exclusion.

3.4. Contextual Background: Vietnam’s Regional Landscape for CBT

Vietnam’s diverse geography and socio-economic conditions create highly uneven foundations for Community-Based Tourism (CBT). The regions most frequently referenced in this study—the Mekong Delta, Central Vietnam, and the Northern Highlands—exemplify distinct opportunities and challenges. While tourism overviews often discuss Vietnam in three macro-zones (North, Central, South), the analysis disaggregates the South into Mekong Delta and Southern peri-urban/urban to reflect distinct investment logics and CBT trajectories.

3.4.1. Mekong Delta (Southern Vietnam)

The Mekong Delta, comprising provinces such as Ben Tre, Tra Vinh, and Can Tho, is both a national agricultural hub and one of the world’s most climate-vulnerable regions. With extensive river networks and cultural assets like floating markets, the Delta has attracted consistent international funding for climate resilience and livelihood diversification. This visibility has made it the epicenter of CBT development in Vietnam.

3.4.2. Central Vietnam

Stretching from Ha Tinh to Da Nang, Central Vietnam is characterized by coastal provinces exposed to typhoons, as well as upland districts inhabited by ethnic minority groups. CBT initiatives here often intersect with heritage tourism (e.g., Hue, Hoi An) and agroforestry projects. However, socio-cultural misalignments between local hosts and international tourists, along with limited infrastructure, continue to constrain tourism readiness.

3.4.3. Northern Highlands

This mountainous region, including provinces such as Ha Giang, Dien Bien, and Cao Bang, is home to most of Vietnam’s 54 recognized ethnic minority groups. Despite its cultural richness and landscape diversity, the Northern Highlands has received far less donor investment. Funding has focused on poverty reduction and basic infrastructure rather than CBT-specific projects, leaving tourism potential largely untapped.

These regional contrasts are not merely geographic; they mirror donor logics and state planning priorities that privilege logistically central, climate-visible provinces (e.g., Mekong Delta) and render upland minority regions structurally peripheral (World Bank, 2016, 2022a; ADB, 2023; IFAD, 2022). In the literature, this translates into disproportionate epistemic visibility for well-funded regions and relative neglect of Northern Highlands case studies.

To situate the analysis, Figure 1 provides a regional overview of Vietnam, highlighting the Mekong Delta, Central Vietnam, and the Northern Highlands. These regions form the geographic basis for comparing disparities in CBT investment and readiness.

4. Results

4.1. Financial and Infrastructure Investments

Government investments in CBT-related infrastructure reveal both expansion and uneven distribution. Selected provinces such as Ben Tre have received targeted road and visitor center upgrades that catalyzed local tourism growth. National vocational training in hospitality and tour guiding has also aimed to integrate vulnerable populations, including climate migrants, into tourism value chains. International agencies contribute additional CBT support. JICA has invested in infrastructure and training for ethnic minority communities in Hoa Binh Province (JICA, 2024). UNDP supports climate-resilient CBT initiatives in the Mekong Delta (UNDP, 2023). The World Bank funds comprehensive projects in disadvantaged areas, combining infrastructure upgrades with livelihood diversification (World Bank, 2023). Vietnam’s National Climate Change Strategy (2021–2030) identifies CBT as an alternative livelihood for climate migrants, with provinces such as Ben Tre, Ca Mau, and Tra Vinh receiving targeted support. The Mekong Delta Integrated Climate Resilience and Sustainable Livelihoods Project, valued at over USD 310 million, exemplifies large-scale investment in CBT-linked resettlement and adaptation. Smaller pilots by IOM and NGOs such as GIZ range from USD 50,000–200,000 per site. These initiatives demonstrate diverse funding sources, but allocations remain geographically uneven, with the Mekong Delta receiving the most consistent support.

Overall, recent public and international programs concentrate infrastructure and capacity-building in logistically central provinces, with more modest allocations to peripheral northern areas.

4.2. Macro vs. Micro-Level Funding Strategies: Implications for Equity

IFAD’s funding footprint is modest—USD 788 million across 17 projects since 2002, with USD 420.5 million direct investment—emphasizing small-scale, community-led projects such as rural markets, homestays, and livelihood training. While aligned with CBT readiness, its limited scale constrains structural change (World Bank, 2025; VietnamPlus, 2025). This funding disparity raises critical concerns. IFAD’s localized approach promotes empowerment but lacks the financial leverage to alter spatial inequalities at scale.

CBT’s potential to serve climate migrants and vulnerable rural populations will remain unrealized. Table 1 is a comparative description clearly illustrating the total investments by IFAD, World Bank, and ADB in Vietnam, highlighting the chronological and financial scale differences.

These portfolios show a scale asymmetry: macro-donors fund corridor and resilience infrastructure; IFAD’s smaller projects target local livelihoods and CBT-readiness.

4.3. IFAD’s Targeted Funding Strategy and Spatial Equity Implications

IFAD’s funding portfolio in Vietnam reflects a regionally differentiated model aligned with livelihood diversification, poverty reduction, and rural development. In the Northern Highlands, projects such as the DPRPR, 3EM, and DBRP have primarily focused on basic infrastructure and minority empowerment, while Central Vietnam initiatives (e.g., 3PAD, TNSP) emphasized agroforestry and rural development. By contrast, the Mekong Delta received the largest share (40%, or USD 168.2 million) for climate adaptation, market access, and ecotourism, compared to 23.8% for the Northern Highlands, 22.2% for Central Vietnam, and 14% for peri-urban areas. These proportions, summarized in Table 2, illustrate how IFAD’s otherwise decentralized approach nonetheless favors the donor-preferred Mekong Delta, leaving northern allocations more poverty-alleviation oriented than tourism-specific.

In Central Vietnam, IFAD’s support for agroforestry and environmental resilience through projects like the 3PAD and Tam Nong Support Project (TNSP) aligns with the region’s cultural and ecological characteristics. Central Vietnam accounted for 22.2%, targeting rural development and livelihood diversification (IFAD, 2023b). The Mekong Delta, by contrast, receives more robust funding (40%, or USD 168.2 million), emphasizing climate adaptation, market access, and ecotourism (e.g., IFIA, CSAT, DBRP). This region’s strategic alignment with donor priorities reflects a strong visibility bias linked to climate urgency and perceived development return.

Table 2 illustrates this distribution, where the Mekong Delta consistently leads in CBT-enabling investment. As shown in Figure 1, the Northern Highlands remain geographically peripheral compared to the donor-preferred Mekong Delta. This spatial positioning partly explains the investment patterns summarized in Table 2 and Table 3. As such, IFAD’s otherwise decentralized approach unintentionally contributes to spatial injustice by reproducing visibility and opportunity gaps in Vietnam’s tourism development landscape. The Mekong receives the largest CBT-enabling share, whereas Northern Highlands funding remains primarily poverty-alleviation oriented rather than tourism-specific.

4.4. Macro-Level Donor Investment Patterns: Centralization and Corridor Bias

National-level funding from the World Bank and ADB exhibits a marked spatial concentration in Southern and Central Vietnam, particularly the Mekong Delta. Flagship initiatives such as the Mekong Delta Integrated Climate Resilience and Sustainable Livelihoods Project (USD 310 million) and the Mekong Resilient Regional Connectivity Project (USD 250 million) reflect major international commitments to climate-resilient infrastructure and economic integration. These macro-level investments prioritize inter-provincial highways, flood defenses, and urban resilience—especially in high-density areas like Cần Thơ and Bến Tre.

Similarly, ADB programs such as the Climate Resilient Inclusive Infrastructure for Ethnic Minorities Project II (USD 72 million) and the Australia–ADB co-funded Central Mekong Delta Connectivity Project (USD 160 million) enhance transport infrastructure and connectivity while directly addressing resilience gaps in provinces such as Phú Yên and Quảng Trị (VietnamPlus, 2023). However, these projects favor logistical centrality and measurable economic outputs (ADB, 2023).

In contrast, the Northern Highlands—home to many of Vietnam’s most vulnerable ethnic minority communities—receive minimal and poorly documented support. Project data for provinces such as Hà Giang and Điện Biên are sparse, often embedded within multi-regional corridor programs that obscure geographic attribution (World Bank, 2020a; ADB, 2023).

As shown in Table 3, the funding breakdown confirms these spatial imbalances. The Mekong Delta receives 56.5% (USD 560 million) of total national-level donor funding, while the Northern Highlands receive only 5% (USD 50 million). Despite commitments to inclusive development, the opacity and concentration of macro-level donor strategies reveal an enduring centralization bias that sidelines peripheral provinces.

4.5. Regional Development Barriers and Spatial Disparities in CBT Readiness

Drawing from Khantee and Jeerapattanatorn’s (2023) analysis and situated within the framework of spatial justice and CBT readiness, this section categorizes tourism development challenges across four major Vietnamese regions. These disparities not only shape the practical implementation of CBT but reflect deeper institutional biases in how ‘readiness’ is defined and addressed by donors. The categorization is based on a critical review of 25 studies focusing on entrepreneurship development, infrastructure access, cultural alignment, and regional policy gaps.

In the Northern region, the main entrepreneurship development challenges include limited community involvement, low financial literacy, inadequate access to bank credit, minimal tourism infrastructure, environmental issues (such as freshwater scarcity), and negative perceptions of informal activities like street vending. These issues contribute to weak tourism capacity and low CBT readiness, making the region less attractive for investment or research attention (Duong et al., 2023; Mai et al., 2014; Luan et al., 2023; Phan et al., 2021; Hoang et al., 2018; P. T. Huong & Lee, 2017; Truong, 2017). This pattern suggests a recurring treatment of the region as a passive recipient of aid, rather than an active tourism actor, echoing Escobar’s (1995) critique of top-down development paradigms.

In Central Vietnam, challenges are more closely linked to socio-cultural misalignments and entrepreneurial deficiencies. These include cultural misunderstandings between hosts and tourists, low technical skills, weak heritage promotion, and competition with industrial sectors. Environmental degradation and lack of sustainable development planning are also common. These overlapping pressures hinder entrepreneurship growth and sustainable CBT implementation (T. H. Nguyen et al., 2023; Phu & Thi Thu, 2022; Quang et al., 2022; Hong et al., 2021; Trinh & Ryan, 2015; Ngo et al., 2018; Cong & Thu, 2020; Conga & Chip, 2020; Truong, 2017; Suntikul et al., 2016).

In the Southern region, especially the Mekong Delta and peri-urban zones, key challenges include ineffective marketing, gender-related burdens on women entrepreneurs, limited product diversification, and weak regional cooperation. Socioeconomic stressors such as increased living costs, pollution, and social issues (e.g., drug abuse, prostitution) compound these difficulties. Additionally, COVID-19-related income losses from international tourism exacerbate these existing vulnerabilities (Quyen & Tuan, 2022; Quang et al., 2023; L. T. M. Huong et al., 2020; Pham, 2020; T. H. Nguyen et al., 2021; Lee et al., 2020; Gao et al., 2021). While infrastructure in this region is stronger, unequal benefit distribution and social risks complicate sustainability outcomes.

The provided Table 4. aligns common regional challenges with specific interventions from IFAD’s 17 projects across various regions of Vietnam. At the national level, all regions face common issues such as limited entrepreneurship skills and inadequate infrastructure, addressed through IFAD’s investments in entrepreneurship support, rural enterprise development, and basic infrastructure.

In Table 5, region-specific challenges identified include freshwater shortages, financial literacy gaps, and minority empowerment needs in the Northern Highlands; cultural misunderstandings and environmental sustainability concerns in Central Vietnam; and socio-economic vulnerabilities and climate impacts in the Mekong Delta and Southern Peri-Urban areas. IFAD’s targeted responses feature infrastructure enhancement, ethnic minority empowerment, agro-forestry development, sustainable agriculture practices, market access improvements, ecotourism, and climate adaptation strategies.

Although IFAD’s regionally tailored strategies indicate awareness of local variation, actual implementation still varies by region in scope and ambition. In the North, foundational poverty alleviation dominates. In the South, more advanced climate-linked tourism models are deployed. This reinforces the earlier argument that development strategies respond not only to need, but also to institutional perceptions of implementability and return on investment. Spatial justice thus requires a deeper restructuring of both how CBT readiness is evaluated and how regional interventions are designed. Table 4 and Table 5 summarize recurrent constraints and corresponding IFAD interventions drawn from 25 studies and project documents.

4.6. Ethnicity, Poverty, and Structural Exclusion

Vietnam’s ethnic composition adds another layer of complexity to spatial tourism development. Of the 54 officially recognized ethnic groups, minority populations—who comprise around 14.7% of the national population—are overwhelmingly concentrated in the Northern Highlands and Central regions (World Bank, 2022a; Michaud, 2016). These areas face compounded disadvantages: limited infrastructure, weaker administrative representation, and chronic poverty rates reaching 18% or higher (T. Nguyen et al., 2010).

By contrast, Southern provinces such as Ben Tre and Tra Vinh, which are predominantly inhabited by the Kinh majority, benefit from more favorable infrastructure, targeted tourism investments, and policy visibility. This disparity is not merely statistical; it reflects a deeper legacy of structural exclusion stemming from colonial administration, post-war centralization, and donor spatial bias (McElwee, 2004).

While CBT is promoted as a tool for poverty alleviation and cultural preservation, its current implementation does little to redress these historical imbalances. Northern communities remain peripheral in both development plans and tourism narratives. The ‘last mile’ challenge of poverty alleviation in these regions underscores the necessity for tailored structural interventions that go beyond infrastructure provision to address root causes of exclusion—especially those faced by ethnic minority groups.

Figure 2 illustrates the regional concentration of ethnic minority groups, primarily in the Northern Highlands and Central regions, and highlights their disproportionate exposure to chronic poverty. While Kinh-majority areas in the Mekong Delta demonstrate comparatively low poverty rates (around 4.15% in 2023), ethnic minority provinces such as Dien Bien, Cao Bang, and Ha Giang report poverty levels averaging 18%. These disparities underscore a structural imbalance: ethnic minority communities remain economically marginalized, with limited infrastructure and lower readiness for community-based tourism (CBT). In contrast, southern regions benefit from higher investment flows, inclusive policies, and market integration that enhance CBT opportunities. The figure emphasizes that addressing poverty among ethnic minorities requires targeted, context-specific investment and participatory planning to bridge the gap in tourism-led development and ensure equitable climate resilience.

Poverty among ethnic minority groups in northern regions tends to be chronic, geographically concentrated, and persistently resistant to broader national poverty alleviation efforts. This phenomenon, often referred to as the “last mile” challenge, underscores the necessity for targeted structural interventions and comprehensive policies aimed explicitly at addressing systemic and historical inequalities faced by minority groups in northern upland areas (World Bank, 2023).

5. Discussion

5.1. Theoretical Implication

The findings demonstrate how donor portfolio logics reproduce spatial injustice and epistemic inequality in Vietnam’s CBT landscape. Macro-donors such as the World Bank and ADB concentrate investments in highly visible, logistically central regions like the Mekong Delta, privileging large-scale infrastructure and corridor development. While IFAD adopts a community-oriented approach, its Northern Highlands projects focus largely on poverty alleviation and basic infrastructure rather than tourism innovation, limiting their transformative potential. This contrast highlights how development “readiness” is constructed not as a reflection of community need but of donor legibility, reinforcing Soja’s (2010) argument that justice is inherently spatial.

At the same time, Escobar’s (1995) critique of donor-driven development imaginaries is evident in the invisibility of upland ethnic-minority provinces. Even when allocations are comparable in percentage terms, project framing emphasizes subsistence and survival rather than cultural or entrepreneurial potential, thereby marginalizing alternative pathways to CBT readiness. The pattern reveals what Bebbington (2000) and The British Academy (n.d.) describe as epistemic marginalization: peripheral communities are rendered invisible in both investment portfolios and scholarly narratives.

The macro-donor distribution summarized in Table 3 underscores Escobar’s (1995) argument that development discourses privilege logistically legible and institutionally accessible spaces. By allocating over half of national-level investments to the Mekong Delta and only 5% to the Northern Highlands, donors effectively erase peripheral regions from both project design and reporting frameworks. This reflects not merely differences in “readiness” but an epistemic logic in which visibility and infrastructural centrality determine viability. The marginalization of ethnic-minority provinces thus stems as much from representational erasure as from financial neglect, reinforcing spatial injustice within Vietnam’s tourism development landscape.

Thus, the evidence confirms that donor investment philosophies—whether macro-scale modernization or micro-scale poverty alleviation—can both inadvertently reproduce inequality unless embedded in a spatial justice framework. By moving beyond the dichotomy of “large vs. small scale,” future CBT scholarship must interrogate how portfolio logics shape not only material distribution but also epistemic visibility.

5.2. Practical Implication: Spatial Disparities in CBT Access and Implementation

Addressing these disparities requires integrated reforms that combine macro-level infrastructure with community-level empowerment. While World Bank and ADB projects enhance connectivity and resilience, they risk reinforcing centralized control and bypassing grassroots participation (World Bank, 2020a; World Bank, 2020b; ADB, 2023). Conversely, IFAD’s empowerment-driven model fosters local inclusion but lacks the financial leverage to shift national patterns (IFAD, 2012). Bridging this divide calls for blended investment strategies: pairing corridor-scale infrastructure with community grants, training programs, and market-access initiatives specifically targeted to marginalized provinces such as Ha Giang and Dien Bien (H. D. Nguyen & Do, 2024; Pham, 2020).

These patterns highlight the need for stronger accountability mechanisms to counteract corridor bias in donor investment. Current reporting frameworks obscure the geographic distribution of multi-regional projects, making it difficult to assess whether funding actually reaches marginalized provinces (OECD, 2019; UNDP & World Bank, 2009). To increase transparency, donors should be required to publish disaggregated, province-level budget data and adopt spatial-equity scorecards that mandate regionally disaggregated reporting and participatory planning milestones (Zielinski et al., 2020). Such measures would prevent investment from clustering exclusively in “bankable” regions and ensure that underfunded provinces receive CBT-specific resources rather than only subsistence aid (Bebbington, 2000; Ziai, 2007). Furthermore, corridor-scale infrastructure projects should be explicitly paired with CBT-enabling investments in adjacent upland and ethnic-minority provinces, so that benefits are not confined to already privileged regions (Le & Vo, 2020; Pham, 2020). Aligning climate-resilience projects with tourism potential in these areas is essential to prevent their permanent exclusion from Vietnam’s tourism economy (Escobar, 1995; Sachs, 1992).

As shown in Section 4.1, Section 4.2, Section 4.3 and Section 4.4, CBT investment remains spatially uneven, with donor funds concentrated in central and southern provinces while northern uplands lag behind. While international donors shape the geography of CBT investment, NGOs have played a more limited and uneven role in addressing these disparities. Many Vietnamese NGOs remain urban-based, donor-dependent, and closely tied to state structures, which constrains their ability to operate in politically sensitive sectors like tourism (Chi Thai, 2017). However, notable exceptions exist: Action on Poverty’s CBT model in Da Bac, Hoa Binh Province, and IFAD’s Improving Market Participation of the Poor (IMPP) project in Ha Tinh and Tra Vinh show that NGO–community collaborations can generate more inclusive outcomes when aligned with international frameworks. Examples of NGO-led CBT models (see Appendix A 

Table A2. NGO engagement in Community-Based Tourism (CBT) in Vietnam. Source: Author’s compilation based on AoP (n.d.), Streets International (n.d.), IFAD (2012), FAO (2021), Mekong Plus (2023), and related donor/NGO reports.

NGO/Project	Region/Communities	Core Activities	Outcomes/Contributions	Limitations/Constraints
Action on Poverty (AoP)	Da Bac, Hoa Binh Province (ethnic minority communities)	Developed CBT homestay model; capacity-building; micro-loans; mentorship for local entrepreneurs.	Strengthened community participation; created a model of culturally grounded CBT.	Limited visibility in academic literature; dependent on donor alignment for funding legitimacy.
Streets International	Hội An (urban disadvantaged youth)	Vocational training in hospitality and culinary arts; integrated graduates into the tourism economy.	Provided pathways for marginalized youth to benefit from tourism growth.	Not explicitly CBT; limited reach beyond one urban center.
Improving Market Participation of the Poor (IMPP)—IFAD	Ha Tinh and Tra Vinh Provinces	Collaboration with provincial governments, cooperatives, and CBOs to strengthen livelihoods and market access.	Enhanced household income, governance, and community resilience; promoted participatory development.	NGOs not always explicitly named; engagement mediated through CBOs and government structures.

) suggest pathways for integrating grassroots agency into donor frameworks.

Strategic pathways include the following:

• Pair WB/ADB corridor projects with ring-fenced CBT readiness packages (training, market access, seed finance) in Ha Giang, Dien Bien, Cao Bang.
• Create co-finance windows where IFAD/NGOs deliver last-mile empowerment inside macro projects.
• Require province-level budget disclosure and annual spatial-equity scorecards.
• Add ethnic-inclusion indicators (co-design, revenue sharing, local governance roles) to donor log-frames.
• Fund participatory marketing & cultural heritage stewardship alongside infrastructure.

5.3. Epistemic Visibility and Development Narratives

Development funding shapes more than material infrastructure—it also defines which regions receive representational attention in academic and policy discourse. As Bebbington (2000) and The British Academy (n.d.) emphasize, epistemic marginalization occurs when the voices and realities of peripheral communities are excluded from dominant development narratives.

Between 2020 and 2025, the literature on CBT in Vietnam disproportionately features Southern provinces, particularly Ben Tre and Can Tho. These areas are not only recipients of IFAD and World Bank funding but also strategically visible and logistically accessible. Consequently, they dominate tourism success stories and research agendas. The Cái Răng Floating Market, designated as a national intangible cultural heritage site (MCST, 2016), exemplifies how infrastructural accessibility and policy alignment contribute to scholarly focus. T. H. P. Nguyen’s (2017) study highlighted both the promise and limitations of this model—exposing persistent infrastructure gaps, coordination challenges, and narrow local participation.

Patterns of epistemic visibility extend to NGOs as well. Donor-backed projects in the Mekong Delta are frequently showcased in both policy documents and academic studies, whereas NGO-supported models often receive less recognition. For example, Action on Poverty’s homestay initiative with ethnic minorities in Hoa Binh Province and Streets International’s vocational training in Hoi An demonstrate meaningful contributions to local livelihoods, yet remain marginal in the scholarly record.

Together, these dynamics suggest a self-reinforcing feedback loop: well-funded, infrastructure-ready regions attract more researchers and policy visibility, which in turn legitimizes continued investment, while underfunded regions—especially in the Northern Highlands—are deemed academically invisible despite their socioeconomic urgency. Breaking this cycle requires further empirical research to examine how funding distribution shapes the geographies of tourism knowledge and to establish more equitable research frameworks. In particular, participatory, field-based studies that foreground community perspectives can counteract representational invisibility and integrate NGO-led initiatives more fully into Vietnam’s CBT scholarship (Phuong et al., 2020; K. T. Nguyen et al., 2023).

5.4. Ethnicity, Poverty, and NGO Engagement in Structural Exclusion

As shown in Figure 2 (see Section 2.6), the concentration of ethnic minority groups in the Northern Highlands and Central regions underscores the persistence of poverty and exclusion. Despite comprising nearly 15% of the national population, these communities remain disadvantaged by limited infrastructure, weaker administrative representation, and chronic poverty rates above 18% (Baulch et al., 2009). By contrast, Kinh-majority provinces in the Mekong Delta benefit from stronger infrastructure, targeted investments, and policy visibility.

This disparity reflects deeper structural legacies, including colonial administration, post-war centralization, and donor spatial bias. While CBT is promoted as a tool for poverty alleviation and cultural preservation, its implementation often bypasses peripheral ethnic regions. Without targeted structural interventions that go beyond infrastructure provision to address systemic exclusion, CBT risks reinforcing rather than alleviating inequalities.

The role of NGOs further highlights this tension. Mainstream donor projects in the Northern Highlands typically focus on poverty alleviation rather than CBT, yet NGOs such as Action on Poverty have demonstrated the potential of culturally grounded, community-driven models. By providing micro-loans, training, and mentorship, these initiatives support ethnic minority entrepreneurs in ways that move beyond subsistence aid. Nevertheless, such examples remain exceptions rather than the norm. Other NGOs, including Oxfam, SNV, and Helvetas, have also engaged in tourism-related livelihood projects; however, their activities have been more prominent in the Mekong Delta, central regions, or in policy advocacy rather than in the Northern Highlands. As such, direct support for ethnic minority-led CBT initiatives remains fragmented and exceptional (Oxfam, 2019; SNV, 2017; Helvetas, 2020). Without stronger institutional support and greater recognition of NGO-led models in both policy and research, ethnic minority communities will continue to face exclusion from Vietnam’s tourism economy despite their rich cultural and environmental assets. A broader mapping of NGO engagement is provided in Appendix A Table A2.

6. Conclusions

This section summarizes the study’s main findings, acknowledges its limitations, and outlines directions for future research. This study critically examined the spatial, institutional, and epistemic dimensions of CBT development in Vietnam. Through a comparative analysis of macro- and micro-level investments, it revealed how donor priorities—particularly those of IFAD, ADB, and the World Bank—reinforce spatial asymmetries that privilege the Mekong Delta while marginalizing Northern ethnic minority regions. Although CBT is widely promoted as a vehicle for resilience, equity, and cultural preservation, its implementation remains structurally uneven. Macro-scale infrastructure projects benefit logistically central regions, while community-oriented investments remain limited in scope and scalability. Furthermore, knowledge production tends to follow funding visibility, reproducing representational biases in both scholarship and development policy.

Limitations and Future Research Suggestions

In terms of limitations, this research was based primarily on secondary data, including donor reports, policy documents, and published case studies. While this approach enabled a comprehensive mapping of investment patterns, it also meant that precise regional disaggregation of financial data was not always possible. Moreover, the absence of ethnographic or participatory fieldwork limited the ability to capture lived experiences and local perceptions of CBT readiness, particularly in the underfunded Northern Highlands communities.

Future studies should employ mixed-method approaches that combine policy and financial analysis with field-based, participatory research in marginalized regions. Comparative studies across Southeast Asia could also highlight whether Vietnam’s investment disparities reflect broader regional trends. Longitudinal studies tracking CBT initiatives over time would shed light on whether localized projects can eventually scale into sustainable regional models. By integrating local voices and participatory planning into both research and practice, scholars and policymakers can better align CBT initiatives with principles of spatial justice, equity, and resilience.

To realize CBT’s transformative potential, policy and research must converge around inclusive metrics that prioritize participatory planning, representational justice, and ethnic diversity. External funding should serve as an enabler—not a director—of grassroots initiatives. Ultimately, future tourism research should challenge spatial and epistemic inequalities by foregrounding the lived realities, aspirations, and knowledge systems of marginalized communities across Vietnam.