Empirical Analysis of Critical Success Factors in Developing Ecotourism

Service industries are becoming more and more essential in economic development in most of the countries around the world and become the huge parts of the gross domestic product (GDP) and national image. Ecotourism—one of the smokeless service industries—is becoming an important trend for business to develop sustainably and is an irreversible development trend. The Vietnamese ecotourism sector is in the initial stage of development era. Significant challenges lie in the balance between achieving competitive advantage while maintaining a sustainable development of ecosystem. Taking the Vietnamese ecotourism industry as the field of research, a set of possible critical success factors in this industry was developed based on exploring the literature review and experts’ assessments. Delphi technique was used to develop critical success factors (CSFs). Following the theoretical model, this study proposed a Structural Equation Model (SEM) to test the impact of CSFs on the development of ecotourism. Based on the analytical findings, this study identified the eight CSFs in developing ecotourism in Vietnam, including natural resources, human resources, facilities and infrastructure, quality, sociocultural, marketing, regional partnerships, and state management of ecotourism. This study also determined the extent of their influence on the growth of local ecotourism in Vietnam, which raise recommendations and draw conclusions about how to gain a competitive edge for ecotourism.