Transformation of Heritage into Assets for Income Enhancement: Access to Bank Credit for Vietnamese Community-based Tourism Homestays

The failure to transform heritage into assets is one of the main constraints for community-based tourism development. This article shows how access to bank credit contributes to income enhancement among ethnic minorities involving community-based tourism homestays. A multistage sampling technique and direct interviews using questionnaires were used to collect a rich dataset of a total 262 homestays in Northwestern Vietnam. To deal with model uncertainty, the approach of double-selection lasso logistic regression applied to Propensity Score Matching was used. Results show that credit recipients increased their total income level from US$180.11 to US$228.58 with an average of US$194.63 compared to non-recipients based on four different matching algorithms. The results suggest that the provision of bank credit should be expanded to enhance income for homestays. To facilitate homestay access to bank credit, stronger collaboration between homestays and travel agencies, better access to training and the adoption of a mobile-based banking platform by homestays are all needed. Smartphone-based credit services to homestays have the potential to reduce transaction costs of accessing credit for mountainous regions. Results imply that heritage can serve as productive assets via financial leverage.