First Days in Hanoi

Talk about a whirlwind first few days! 

From our smiling faces, you would think that we are having the time of life, taking in the sights, sounds and experiences of life in Hanoi…. and you would be right! 

Everyone is adjusting well and we've been maximizing our time in the city with numerous activities, meetings, and meals. Our first day was filled with sightseeing, as we cruised around Hoan Kiem lake and enjoyed a delicious meal of bun bo (noodles with beef, herbs and salad). With many photo opportunities along the way, we made sure to make our mark on this chaotic and energetic city. 

At the end of the first night, the team met up with our HOU counterparts, Ms. Que, Ms. Ly, and past student volunteer Trung, for an amazing meal at the Sen Tay Ho buffet. We were also fortunate to have a member of Vietnam's Ministry of Tourism join us for a toast. As some of the newer team members realized, Capilano University's Cross Cultural Tourism class definitely is important to our understanding of these meetings!

Tomorrow we're off to Sapa and we're spending the day gathering supplies, wrapping up some prep work and getting ready for the night train. We'll be checking in regularly over the next few weeks so please make sure to follow us along on this blog and our various social media channels.

We now have Instagram, the highly addictive photo sharing site! 

As you can see from our feed, we LOVE sharing almost every moment of our adventure :)

Follow us at http://instagram.com/cbtvietnam!

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Phase 2 begins: First trip starts in 4 days!

The CBT Vietnam slogan for this month is: "if you're not running, something is wrong!" We're joking, of course! But seriously, Phase 2 of the PATA Foundation funded project in Northern Viet Nam is underway and it is going to be a busy one!

Returning to Vietnam will be Dr. Chris Bottrill, Dean of Global and Community Studies at Capilano University, Instructor Stephanie Wells, and students Jase Wilson and Taryn Bodrug. Once again we will be joined by Ms. Ngoc Anh (Vice Dean of the tourism faculty at Hanoi Open University - HOU) as well as a team of HOU student volunteers.

It is going to be an exiting, ground-breaking trip for our learners and community leaders in Ta Phin. We will be working on the following:

• facilitation of a business trip for 12 entrepreneurs to the big city of Hanoi;
• here our entrepreneurs will meet with private tourism companies to begin:
• partnerships will be created;
• and, negotiations will ensue.

Tourists to the region would usually book a hill tribe trekking tour that lands them in Sa Pa -visiting villages such as Ta Phin and Lao Chai for merely an hour or two. The home-stay operators from Ta Phin are collectively working towards creating packaged experiences where tour guides bring visitors directly to Ta Phin home-stays. This will be a fantastic development for our home-stay owners and the village of Ta Phin. 

In the village of Lao Chai, the CBT team will continue delivering training on entry level skills. Our goal is to help residents of Lao Chai to increase their capacity to pursue their own brand of successful community based tourism. This is not cut paste here - what works in Ta Phin can serve as a model for success but every case is different. The CBT team will sample what Lao Chai has to offer and connect with local stakeholders.

Our whirl wind two week schedule will start on Thursday September 27th and end October the 9th, 2012. Readers will not want to miss out on what is happening! Over the next few weeks we will be releasing new media and performing regular trip updates. 

So get onto twitter @CBTvietnam and facebook: http://www.facebook.com/cbtvietnam, let us know what you think! We want to hear your voice!

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DISCUSSION TOPIC 1 - Destination Development

These "Discussion Topics" have been written to begin healthy, productive discussion and debate on a variety of topics. There are designed to encourage tourists, private sector, government, students, anyone to contribute to this blog.

The training that is being done in the village of Taphin is in response to the data gathered in the needs assessment as well as numerous discussions with locals, tourists, private and public sector. It has been designed to address both the verbalized needs of the locals the problem of street-sellers (which has been the reason for some tour companies to stop bringing tourists to Taphin).

Much of the training has focused on entrepreneurship with the goal of seeing some locals starting their own small businesses in the Taphin's town centre. This could eventually see the development of a number of small shops, restaurants, cafes, etc. owned and run by the Red Dao along the tourists 'strip'. Many of the Vietnamese shops that have been rented from the Red Dao may be replaced and new shops may also be built.

The question: How will the tourist interpret the destination's development? As the economy of the village changes within the town centre, how will it impact local life? Will it? If the street-sellers are replaced with small tourist shops, private sector, how will you support the peoples of Taphin's efforts?

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