Tourism has been playing an important role on economic development at region, area, and country level. It generates jobs, increases incomes, and reduces poverty. In Sa Pa, tourism is recognized as an effective tool to alleviate poverty by local government. However, people perception on this is limited. In this research, researchers used semi-structure interview to survey 47 people who participate on tourism activities at Lao Chai, Ta Van, Ban Ho, Thanh Phu to find out their perception on tourism development. The result shows that local people understood an important role of tourism development in poverty reduction but they could not participate into tourism activities due to lack of capitals, skills, and foreign language. From these reasons, some solutions are given to help the local people to engage into tourism activities and to increase their incomes.