Hello
I've been following the debate and would like to add my comments.
Last year, I took part in a pre conference trip for the PATA Ecotourism and
Adventure Travel Conference in Chiang Mai, Thailand. I have lived in
Thailand for many years and work as a consulant specialising in sustainable
tourism development.
As part of the trip, we visited Doi Inthanon National Park to see some of
the minority people, commonly known as 'hill tribes' - they are certainly
not indigenous as such, in that they are nomadic but their habitats are now
permanent, many of them having been absorbed into Thai society albeit
peripherally.
Several of the villages offer 'exhibition culture' - the kind that is
commonly criticised by both tourism academics and professionals. They dress
up in traditional garb, smile for photographs, and generally do the tourist
thing and wait until the tour buses go home. There are several other
villages that are untouched by tourism where some of the people in the
village seem to live in more of a traditional manner, and some have
'progressed' to the Honda/Levi lifestyle.
Perhaps the most interesting of all the villages are those that have been
adopted by Royal Projects under the name of His Majesty the King or Her
Majesty the Queen. The Royal family have been very involved in helping
villages move from their opium cash crops to latter day cash crops such as
flowers and vegetables that are sold via a number of sources. In many of
these villages, if you were not either an anthropologist, or in the know,
you would think that you were in any other Thai village. Certainly there
are giveaway signs such as the detail of house construction (concrete houses
with a mud floor for example), internal decorations, and of course the faces
of the people themselves. These prosperous villages have pickup trucks,
electricity, Levis, Hondas and TVs all over the place. One thing that these
villages do not have is tourists.
In all of these villages, I feel that the pressure from Thai society to
change, and indeed the aspirations of the villagers themselves to be
prosperous is far greater than any influence that tourism may have.
Noah Shepherd
Managing Director
ETC Asia Co., Ltd (A Member of Asia Web Direct)
Muang Mai Chrysler Building 4th Floor.
9/17 Moo 6, Thepkasattri Road
T. Rasda, A. Muang
Phuket 83000, Thailand
T: + 66 76 236 550 F: + 66 76 236 542
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http://etc-etcetera.com
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