“Nobody is coming here anyway,” sighs Mrs. Hung. Her restaurant has 10 dining tables; even though it is supper time, all of them are empty.
Once a popular tourist destination, Cua Dai beach is now a deserted place. Not far from Hung’s restaurant looms an abandoned lifeguard tower. There is no music to be heard and you rarely come across visitors. Instead, you see huge sandbags piled everywhere against the sea.
The desolation dates from 2014, Hung explains, when a powerful typhoon hit Vietnam. Giant waves driven by strong winds swallowed a big chunk of Cua Dai beach, and many coconut trees fell into the sea. Since then, Hung, like many restaurant owners here, has seen her business decline.
Such stories have become much more common in Vietnam in recent years as natural disasters seemingly caused by climate change take an increasing toll on the country’s once promising tourism industry.
Vietnam is no stranger to typhoons and flooding. But a changing climate is making things even worse. A 2010 World Bank report warned that the country is experiencing longer typhoon and flood seasons and that “storms are tracking into new coastal areas.”
More frequent extreme weather events are not only dissuading foreign visitors, they are threatening the existence of the attractions they might come to see. A record flood in 2009, for instance, submerged the entire ancient town of Hoi An including its iconic Japanese bridge. Only a huge effort saved the 300-year-old wooden structure.
At stake also is natural beauty. Ca Mau Cape, Vietnam’s southernmost point and a paradise for bird watchers, is now being gradually washed away by fierce tides and rising sea levels.
And on current trends, things will only get worse. By the end of the century, rising seas are expected to encroach on one-third of the country’s national parks and nearly one quarter of its key biodiversity areas, according to a report published in 2014 by the World Tourism Organization.
And that is bound to have an impact on tourism, officials worry.
“Rising sea levels could engulf beaches and other natural resources in coastal areas, damage cultural destinations, and flood tourism infrastructure, costing businesses enormous amounts of time and money,” warned Dang Thi Bich Lien, deputy minister for Culture, Sports and Tourism, at a recent conference.
The economic sectors on which the Vietnamese have traditionally depended, such as fisheries and agriculture, have already suffered from climate change. Over the past few months, the worst drought in 90 years has dried up rice paddies and shrimp ponds in the Mekong Delta – the source of 90 percent of the country’s rice exports and 60 percent of shrimp and fish exports.
Although it’s hard for scientists to say how much climate change may be affecting the intensity of storms, the International Panel on Climate Change voices “high confidence” of climate effects including “submergence, coastal flooding, and coastal erosion.”