“HUMAN error” has been blamed officially for the terrible accident that sank a boat in Ha Long bay and killed 12 people last week. Surely that can’t be wrong. But whose error exactly?

The boat’s 22-year-old captain—who did not go down with his ship—and one of his colleagues have been charged with negligence, according to reports published on February 21st. The valves that connected their junk’s engine-cooling pipes to the water had been left open overnight, swamping the hull. The Bien Mo sank suddenly, at around five o’clock in the morning. Eleven foreign tourists and a Vietnamese guide were drowned. Nine tourists survived.

In one respect, such accidents are not uncommon. In January 2009 a boat sank in central Vietnam and killed some 40 Vietnamese citizens. Though that disaster was blamed on similar conditions its story did not attract much in the way of international headlines.

The mere loss of human life may not be enough to attract the government’s attention. What happened in Ha Long bay last week has demanded special notice as the worst accident to afflict Vietnam’s tourist industry in the past 25 years. Safety standards have tended to be lax in Ha Long bay: that much was already known. But now other operators are expecting to feel a painful pinch.

Like several other of the fastest-developing parts of the world, Vietnam has done a remarkable job of drawing increasing numbers of foreign visitors in the past ten years. Its ongoing struggle has been to convince affluent tourists that their exotic holidays can be safe ones too.

People who work in Vietnam’s tourism business seem to be in agreement about what caused the disaster in Ha Long bay: cheapskate outfits sail clapped-out, “tired” old junks, piloted by “cowboys”. Tim Russell owns a travel company called Come and Go Vietnam and also blogs about the local industry. He tends to be quite critical of some of his competitors. A recent post of his, titled “Will anyone learn this time?”, summarises the frustrations felt by who work in his field.

Mr Russell makes one especially sharp point. “The Tripadvisor forums are full of Hanoi-based agents saying ‘Let’s not point the finger, these things happen etc etc,’ and, worst of all, claiming that if the people on board had booked more expensive tours, they wouldn’t have died, as if safety is something reserved for luxury travellers [sic].” The hope seems to be that the right sort of tourist can be lulled into ignoring the odd disaster—if only they can be reassured that their own boats will enjoy smooth sailing.

Luxury travel has taken off in Vietnam in recent years (if you don’t fancy taking a heavily congested, four-hour drive to the bay you can opt for a helicopter ride to your private boat) and it’s something that the local travel industry is keen to promote. The luxury sector is doing what it can to distance itself from the headline-grabbing accident. But a large segment of the market has ever been—and still is—strictly “budget”: banana-pancake-eating backpackers, price-sensitive Chinese packages and super-cheap deals for the domestic market.

The discount sector manages to eke out a profit by fudging many of the checks and balances applied by scrupulous international operators. In 2009 a busload of Russians travelling from beachside Mui Ne, a hotspot for Russian tourists, to the old hill station of Dalat went over the verge of a steep and winding road. More than ten people were killed. Local authorities promised quick action; the driver, who survived the crash, was charged days later. But making a villain of a driver here and a driver there does not address the root of the problem, nor, presumably, the perception of Vietnam as a safe place to visit.

That the Bien Mo was a somewhat ramshackle affair is obvious from this blog post. Though backpackers in Vietnam tend to be sniffy, their photos are eloquent. The most recent reports claim it was unlicensed. According to other reports the company at fault for the sinking of the Bien Mo was responsible for another accident, in 2009, which drowned four people in the same area.

A sustainable-tourism consultant who has worked in Ha Long bay (and asked not to be named) responds with horrified sarcasm. “Wow, so it happens again.” Many of the boaters allowed to ferry around tourists lack “even the most basic safety procedures or equipment.” If the still nascent industry is to flourish, responsible agencies are going to have to start concerning themselves with the industry as a whole.

(Photo credits: Northern Vietnam Travelogue and Wikimedia Commons)