Vietnam weighs pros and cons of adding golf courses to its tourist attractions
September 14, 2008
By Beth Thomas and Van Nguyen
Vietnam's plan to build 123 golf courses is posing a hazard to the nation's rice crop. Local governments approved an eightfold increase in the number of courses by 2010, creating what Vietnamese travel company Exotissimo calls the Ho Chi Minh Golf Trail.
Last month Prime Minister Nguyen Tan ordered reviews, to be completed by the end of the year, on whether the projects were needed.
"It's become an issue of food security," said Robert Bicknell, a former national team coach and the manager of the Kings' Island Golf Club near Hanoi, the first course to be built in the country since the Vietnam War. "Vietnam's woken up and said: 'Let's see how much agricultural land we have left.'"
Three-quarters of Vietnam's land, or 24.7 million hectares, is used for forestry and crops such as rice, coffee, cashews, pepper and rubber. The world's second-biggest rice exporter loses 51 700ha of paddy land a year, according to Tran The Ngoc, the deputy minister of natural resources and the environment.
Increasing the country's golf courses to 139 from 16 would involve more than 44 500ha, according to a June report by the ministry of natural resources and environment.
The ruling Communist Party's policy of "doi moi", or renovation, has spurred urban growth by 81 percent since 1990, according to the general statistics office. Growth of 29 percent in the population since 1990 led the government to ban rice exports temporarily earlier this year and propose a tax on shipments.
New wealth, new game
Vietnam created the Vietnam Golf Association last year to promote the game. Bao Dai, the country's last emperor, played it before he abdicated in 1945. His golf clubs are on display at his former villa in Dalat.
The number of players in the country will increase to 50 000 in the next decade from 8 000 now, according to Nguyen Ngoc Chu, the head of the golf association.
"We used to say in Vietnam that anything too expensive was a luxury, but nowadays people are changing their view," said Chu. "We have to work, we have to earn money and we have to enjoy it."
Golf was introduced in the 1920s when French architect Ernest Hébrard laid out a course in Dalat, the capital of Lam Dong province.
The province, Vietnam's second-biggest coffee grower, and Ho Chi Minh City have each approved licences for six courses.
"One of the reasons golf is finding more interest from overseas is that there are more courses being built," said George Ehrlich-Adam, the general manager of Exotissimo in Ho Chi Minh City. "Vietnam has the attractiveness of an exotic, new golf destination."
Han Viet, a Vietnamese-Korean joint venture, received a permit in November to build a golf course and resort in K'ren, a village of the K'hor ethnic minority that is 15km northeast of Dalat.
"Golf courses create employment, bring more money to local people, develop services and attract high-end foreign tourists," said Nguyen Tao, the director of the Lam Dong Tourism, Trade and Investment Promotion Center. "Coffee plantations don't ensure stable income because the price fluctuates."
The Han Viet project would use about 80ha of agricultural land, Bon Nor K'Do, the village chief, said in an interview last month.
About 700 people were dependent on growing coffee, rice, fruit, vegetables and flowers from land allocated to the project, he said.
Not all agree
But "the golf course will kill the livelihood of the people here", argued Bon Yok, a mother of seven children. "The golf course people said that they will provide jobs for us, but we will only plant grass or work on the construction site for three years, maybe."
Nguyen Viet Hoang, Han Viet's accountant in Dalat, said executives were unavailable for comment.
The government may be aided in stopping the courses from sprouting by slowing economic expansion.
Vietnam cut its growth target for next year to 7 percent from 9 percent after raising interest rates three times this year to slow Asia's fastest inflation. The economy expanded by 8.5 percent last year, the quickest in more than a decade.
"You're going to see a lot of the courses under construction slow down," said Peter Ryder, the chief investment officer of Indochina Capital Vietnam Holdings, which has put $60 million (R483 million) into the 70ha Montgomerie Links, designed by Colin Montgomerie, in central Vietnam.
Officials in Lam Dong province say the projects aren't using agricultural land and that they often have to license the courses as part of an investment package.
"We've reserved land for agriculture so the golf projects won't affect our production," said Phan Van Dung, the deputy director of Lam Dong's planning and investment department. "Investors always want to include a golf course in their resort or hotel projects to increase the value."
Seventy-six of the licensed courses are already under construction, taking up more than 23 800ha, of which 15 400ha is farmland.
In Lam Dong province, about four- fifths of the allocated 2 500ha is agricultural land.
The Ho Chi Minh City People's Committee does not intend to approve any new courses until it can first review the effectiveness of the existing projects.
For Chu at the golf association, the arguments are simple: "Every country has golf courses and we should have them in Vietnam."
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