Recently, tourism development has paid more attention in Northern Vietnam, one of the poorest areas in Vietnam. Many rural and poor local residents are involved in several activities such as hosting tourists, providing traditional foods, drinks, and music performance and selling souvenir, local products. These activities create many opportunities for people to increase their living standards and to build up the rural economy in general. Based on the secondary data in Phu Tho, Yen Bai, Lao Cai, Ha Giang province, the study aims to explore the understanding of the aspects of tourism development. Especially, we are particularly interested in the contributions of tourism development to the four selected provinces‟ economies. We found that the local residents gain more income and having better living standards through active participation in tourism activities. At the provincial level, the results showed that tourism plays an important role in the economy through increasing jobs and budget contribution. The results can be of considerable interest to policy-makers in developing tourism. | Contributions of tourism to socio-economic development in the midland and mountainous areas of northern Vietnam
