Curated Development : Tourism as a Communication Channel for Development Narratives in Vietnam

Sammanfattning

This master’s degree project explores tourism as a communication channel through which development narratives are produced and then interpreted by international visitors in Vietnamese tourism environments. Tourism is approached from a different angle than usual, as a place of meaning-making rather than a matter of economy and leisure. The project examines how development narratives are constructed and communicated through visuals, texts, and spatial arrangements within tourism sites. The fieldwork was conducted in selected touristic areas across Northern and Central Vietnam, including Hanoi, Sapa, Ninh Binh, Ha Long Bay, Hoi An and Hue. The variety of locations allows for observation and analysis of diverse narratives, including state-driven, heritage-related, or authenticity-oriented ones through the lens of representation, semiotics, and storytelling frameworks. This project investigates how development is encoded into the experiences of international visitors in tourism environments and often promoted as natural and stripped of its political meaning. The research is based on a qualitative interpretative methodological approach using critical discourse and visual analysis, combined with light ethnographic observation to investigate the role of language, imagery, and spatial arrangements in communicating development narratives. Informal conversations are included to bring in another perspective from international visitors and residents who experienced Vietnam in different ways and extents. The findings reveal the important role of spatial control, heritage branding, political symbolism, visual spectacle and selective omission in the construction of development narratives. The project therefore suggests that tourism in Vietnam operates as a powerful communication channel for the production and circulation of development narratives, especially those related to national identity, history and progress. Looking at tourism from such a perspective contributes to Communication for Development as it views what is generally understood as an economic or leisure activity as a communicative practice with a massive reach and influence, emphasizing how development is not only implemented but also curated and negotiated in global contexts.