Some features of tourists in Vietnam during the colonial period

Abstract

Born in the heart of the French colonialism, the Indochinese Tourism industry, including Vietnam, was one of the colonial exploitation tools and a propaganda mechanism for the so-called French "civilizing mission". The main task of the Indochina Tourism, as well as in Vietnam, was to attract tourists. Tourists become the key and decisive issue of the Tourism industry. Until the early 1930s, French colonial government's policy of tourist attraction was mainly aimed at foreigners, who were considered to be much more financially affordable comparing to the poor local who made up the vast majority of the population but had little chance to traver arould. Even a very small number of middle-class and wealthy local were prevented from participating in tourism activities due to racial prejudice and discrimination. In order to compensate for the losses caused by the impact of the Great Depression (1929-1933), from the second half of the 1930s, the colonial government of Indochina sought to develop domestic tourism by attracting more and more local people and those who lived and worked regularly in Indochina to participate in tourism activities. This marked a new development direction for the Vietnamese tourism industry. However, in my opinion, domestic tourism only received support from a very small group of people in the colonial society, and was not capable of promoting the development of the Indochina Tourism Industry itself, let alone promoting economic development and prosperity in general.