Futures of spiritual tourism in Vietnam in 2050
Authors:   , Nguyen Phuong 
Published: July 2024

<p><strong>Spiritual tourism is a significant sector of the global tourism market, growing fast in both scale and scope. While spiritual tourism has received much attention from academics and practitioners, the future of spiritual tourism is still uncertain. Post Covid-19, regenerative tourism may be a probable future of spiritual tourism, in which long-lasting sustainability for all stakeholders, marginalised people, sectors, communities, and the natural world are a greater focus.</strong></p><p>The purpose of this thesis is to address the question 'What are the futures of spiritual tourism in Vietnam in 2050?.’ Deploying scenario planning as a theory building and research method, and using a driver approach, it constructs four scenarios of spiritual tourism in Vietnam in 2050. A Delphi method was used to collect data from thirty participants who are experts in spiritual tourism and relevant sectors. Namely, the economic, political, social, technological, and environmental sectors. Four Delphi rounds, three of interviews, and one of surveys, were conducted. Data was analysed by the bricolage approach, which interprets fragmented data from different thoughts, patterns, and perspectives in a meaningful way. This process produced a scenario planning framework for understanding spiritual tourism from a theoretical and practical perspective. The conceptual framework consists of four alternative futures (or scenarios) of spiritual tourism created upon a foundation of ontology and epistemology. Scenario 1 - Secularisation, a prediction scenario, focuses on how secularisation secularises spirituality. Scenario 2 - Individualisation, a prognosis scenario, envisages that individualisation diversifies spirituality, shifting spiritual tourism from institutional religions to individual spirituality. Scenario 3 - Cyborg Religion, a science fiction scenario, emphasises how technology changes spirituality, and spiritual tourism addresses physical space. Scenario 4 - A Whole New World, a utopia emerging from dystopia scenario, highlights how dystopia strengthens spirituality, and subsequently transforms spiritual tourism from a sustainable to a regenerative form.</p><p>The theoretical contribution of this thesis is a conceptual framework that provides an understanding of the future of spiritual tourism in Vietnam from a plural perspective. The literature on spiritual tourism has thus far been dominated by a Western perspective focussed on international tourists, this plurality of spiritual tourism model will contribute to the knowledge of an Asian perspective on domestic tourism. The research also identifies a series of drivers of change that will shape the future of spiritual tourism, and examines the impact of these trends when they are combined through the scenarios in this thesis. This model contributes to identification through its use as a ‘map,’ that can be used to find out where spiritual tourism could go from certain pre-set conditions. The conceptual framework is also transferable to other religions and destinations. Finally, the conceptual framework elaborates Norman’s definitions of spiritual tourism in the complicated context of Vietnam, and suggests revisiting the definition. This conceptual framework also elaborates on Abdul, Tatoglu, & Shamsiah’s conceptual model for future research, and presents it under different conditions-scenarios.</p><p>From a futures perspective, the research introduces new access to the future by merging Dator et al.’s philosophy, Bergman et al.’s ontology, and Yeoman & McMahon-Beattie’s adaption into a single framework, in order to stretch the understanding of the futures. This conceptual framework can create boundaries and separate possible futures of spiritual tourism. The research also contributes to scenario planning, and theory building by demonstrating how scenario planning builds upon and extends intuitive logic frameworks when science fiction and dystopian aspects from Bergman et al.’s ontology perspective are added.</p><p>The plurality of spiritual tourism model gives insight into the complexities and changes from an industry perspective, and provides a series of assumptions about the future of spiritual tourism in Vietnam based on the drivers of change identified. It will help policy-makers, destination managers, and tourism planners to understand and tackle uncertainties, seize new business opportunities, and develop appropriate policies and strategies for future-proofing.</p><p>The central contribution of this research is that it represents the future of spiritual tourism. This is a guide to the future of spiritual tourism. The future of spiritual tourism is unknown. I have created the known.</p>