Industrialization, Tourism, and Environmental Impact in Vietnam

Industrialization and modernization are two necessary steps for a country to develop. While industry has grown up, the harmful effects of the industry on environment and society have also been increasing at the same time. Tourism in Vietnam is a typical example. According to Joan C. Henderson, Vietnam’s economy has improved after the reform of “Doi Moi” promulgated by the Communist Party at the Sixth Party Congress in 1986 (271). Since this event happened, Vietnam has encouraged the international tourists. The number of visitor arrivals in 1986 was 54,353 and rapidly increasing. In the early 1990s, foreign arrivals were raised by 40 - 50% on average per year (Nguyen and Le, 1997). Recently, on the first ten months of 2014, the total foreign arrivals reached 6,608,391 that rise eight percent higher than the same phase last year (“International”, 2014). However, the development of tourism in the beaches, especially in Vung Tau city, Vietnam causes water pollution, which affects the health of people who live near the beach.
The development of tourism in Vung Tau

Organic waste is usually the untreated waste water discharge. It mostly comes from hotels, resorts, restaurants, and infrastructure. One of the largest tourism resorts which consists of a five-star hotel with 1,100 rooms and a championship golf course was set to be built by a Canadian-US partnership, whose value is US $4.2 billion (“Toronto”, 2008). The amount of water that these hotels use per day is a problem. By way of the construction of numerous resorts, hotels, restaurants and other business activities in coastal areas, progressively, untreated waste water directly discharges into the sea. Therefore, it is an element which pollutes the sea the uttermost. Waste materials are literally harmful for both the environment and the