Nguyen Quang Tan, Fumikazu Ubukata and Nguyen Cong Dinh

Abstract: This study provides an overview of the publication trends in the field of community-based tourism (CBT) in Vietnam to enhance our understanding of “where we are” in the course of sustainable tourism development and its research. The foundation of this work is based on the annals and review of 59 published academic documents in this field from 1986 to 2020. In addition to our retrospective findings of CBT publication trajectories, the qualitative thematic analysis delineated three predominant perspectives: “development supporters,” “protectionists,” and “community developers.” We argue that the evolution of CBT publication in Vietnam has achieved certain progress that shifted from the initial domination by Western authors to some level of academic localisation in the later phase. However, during this academic localisation, domestic scholars revealed their bias in research perspectives, as the majority advocated the viewpoint of economic growth. The study calls for a “balanced” approach domestically to enrich CBT policy and research.

Keywords: A critical perspective, community-based tourism (CBT), publication trends, qualitative thematic analysis, Vietnam