Hill Tribe Eco Tour
Street Address
106 Moo 1 Ban Huay Khom
City
T. Mae Yao, A. Muang
State/Province
Chiang Rai
Postal/Zip Code
57100
Country
Thailand
Year innovation began
2004
Geotourism Challenge Addressed by Entrant
Quality of benefit to the people of the desitination
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Indicate sector in which you principally work
Community Organization
Main insight addressed
Develop community assets
Geographic location
Rural, Mountain.
Name Your Project
Describe Your Idea
What is the goal of your innovation?
To provide the Hill Tribe with a source of income while preserving their culture and the geographical environment in which they live.
How does your approach support or embody geotourism?
The Hill Tribe Tour embodies geotourism by providing income to the Hill Tribe while preserving the local environment, the character of the villages, and the culture of the ethnic minorities. The Tour underscores the importance of the distinctiveness of living in a village setting where visitors can learn about and observe local traditions, including using a few courtesy words in the local language and participating in ceremonies. In addition, villagers develop pride and skill in demonstrating their traditions and work together to promote and provide a distinctive, authentic visitor experience. The income generated helps support families and reducing the possibility of human trafficking and labor exploitation of the Hill Tribe.
Describe your approach in detail. How is it innovative?
The approach is innovative as visitors live in the same settings as the Hill Tribe and adopts policies and practices that minimize pollution, energy consumption, water usage, landscaping chemicals, and excessive lighting by embracing the lifestyle of the Hill Tribe. In addition, the Tour is underpinned by a volunteer program where individuals teach English to the villagers and learn about their culture and customs. Volunteers have a far more enriching and distinctive experience as they gain greater knowledge of the Hill Tribe and their culture through extended stays.
What types of partnerships or professional development would be most beneficial in spreading your innovation?
The professional development that would be most beneficial in spreading the innovation is training Hill Tribe to arrange home-stays without the assistance of intermediaries such as tour companies. The use of intermediaries reduces the income potential of the Hill Tribe, takes away control of the activity from the Hill Tribe, and imposes conditions sometimes not acceptable to the local culture.
In one sentence describe what kind of impact, change, or reform your approach is intended to achieve.
Create employment opportunities for the Hill Tribe and restoring pride of the people by embracing their heritage and traditions.
Describe the degree of success of your approach to date. Clearly define how you measure quantitative and qualitative impact in terms of how your approach contributes to the sustainability or enhancement of local culture, environment, heritage, or aesthetics? How does your approach minimize negative impacts? 200 words or less
The degree of success has been measured by the positive feedback from visitors, referrals, increase in the number of visitors and the subsequent employment opportunities, the preservation of the environment, and promotion of the Hill tribe culture.
How does your program promote traveler enthusiasm, satisfaction, and engagement with the locale?
The program promotes traveler enthusiasm, satisfaction and engagement with the locale by placing visitors in villages and allowing them to live side by side with residents. Therefore, visitors share the same amenities and food as villages and participate in daily activities. In addition, visitors learn about their culture through dance, ceremonies, practices and foods only authentic to a particular hilltribe.
Describe how your innovation helps travelers and local residents better understand the value of the area’s cultural and natural heritage, and educates them on local environmental issues. How do you motivate them to act responsibly in their future travel decisions?
Local residents understand through the program that visitors appreciate their culture and natural heritage and as a result, residents are motivated to preserve their customs.
In what ways are local residents actively involved in your innovation, including participation and community input? How has the community responded to or benefited from your approach?
The local residents are a central part of the program as they facilitate home-stays and practice traditional skills to demonstrate to visitors. In addition, the community has responded positively as the activity generates income and villagers obtain greater knowledge of tourism and the benefits thereof.
Issue Selector
Is your initiative financially and organizationally sustainable? If not, what is required to make it so? What is the potential demand for your innovation?
The program is financially and organizationally sustainable. However, efforts are needed to promote greater control of the tour activity to the Hill Tribe.
How is your initiative currently financed? If available, provide information on your finances and organization that could help others. Please list: Annual budget, annual revenue generated, size of part-time, full-time and volunteer staff.
As the operation is sustainable, the initiative is financed by fees charged to tourists. In 2007, income was 5,232,458 Baht while expenditure was 4,870,641 Baht. There are 8 full-time and 1 part time staff. In terms of volunteers there are 5 full time volunteer and 13 part time volunteers.
What is your plan to expand your approach? Please indicate where/how you would like to grow or enhance your innovation, or have others do so.
The plan to expand the approach includes education initiatives that train the Hill Tribe in the area of computer use, organizational development and planning and tourism in order that they can have greater autonomy and input in the tour.
What are the main barriers you encounter in managing, implementing, or replicating your innovation? What barriers keep your program from having greater impact?
The main barrier is limited resources for training Hill Tribe in managing and promoting a tour that originates from them.
Please provide a personal bio. Note this may be used in Changemakers' marketing material.
Ms. Parisuda Sudhamongkala (Moo) is a sassy city girl from Bangkok has brought with her to this small village a passion for helping others and a style that is all her own. While discarding the conveniences of city life and settling into the pace of the village, Moo has remained big city-efficient in tackling problems such as child trafficking that are devastating the community. Moo also works on culturally sensitive tourism and home-stays with the villagers, and is executing an International Labour Organisation project about trafficking and labour issues. She has also turned her passion for local tribal weaving into a program where tourists are taught to weave during a home-stay with locals.
What is the origin of your innovation? Tell your story.
The Mirror Foundation was established in 1991 with the goal of using theatre to create social change. In 1999, the organization relocated from Bangkok to Chiang Rai and began working to strengthen the communities of Mae Yao sub-district, of which 80% are highland ethnic minorities or “hill tribes”. The Mirror Foundation has been distinguished for the novel use of technology to educate and to protect the legal rights and cultural identities of the hill tribe people. The Mirror Foundation has worked directly with the issues of human trafficking and protection of legal rights of ethnic minorities (especially citizenship rights) for more than four years. During that time, The Mirror Foundation has conducted numerous projects to protect human rights of the disenfranchised on all levels, including: • assisting in the process of obtaining Thai citizenship • working to combat drug abuse and human trafficking • creating income generating projects • employing novel uses of technology and media to promote continuation and preservation of ethnic minority cultures, ways of life and identities • and producing media to raise awareness (both on the local and national level) of issues ranging from HIV/AIDS to missing persons to human rights violations As a part of creating income generating projects and employing novel uses to promote the preservation of the culture, it was decided to establish the Hill Tribe tour.
Please write an overview of your project. This text will appear when people scroll over the icon for your entry on the Google map located on the competition homepage.
Hill Tribe Tour is a specialist company offering trekking and cultural exchange with the Hill Tribe in the beautiful mountains of Chiang Rai in Northern Thailand. The Mirror Foundation is the parent organization of the Hill Tribe Tour that works with over 30,000 Hill Tribe people to improve their lives and deal with the many problems faced by these people (including people trafficking, drugs and lack of Thai citizenship). The Hill Tribe Tour was formed to promote the culture and heritage of the Hill Tribe while providing employment and income generation activities. The tour serves as a bridge between tourists and villagers to provide authentic experiences with real people. The registered guides are all Hill Tribe people with over a decade of experience of trekking. The tour offers 1, 2 and 3-day treks, or longer home-stays where you can learn a specific tribal skill such as weaving or playing a musical instrument. Tours can show you the best Northern Thailand has to offer, including: Hill tribe villages, with a way of life unknown in the Western world; Home stays with tribal families where you can make friends and have cultural exchange; Learning and experiencing hill tribe lifestyles: food gathering and preparation, crops and the skills which go into handicrafts such as weaving, sewing and bamboo furniture-making; and jungle tours.
 | salakchit kaewkham said: A good project for who would like to learn about hill tribe way of living about this idea. - 528 days ago read more > |
| Roscoe Turner said: If any one is looking for an organization that is working for the Hill Tribe people of Thailand and encouraging volunteerism, look no ... about this idea. - 528 days ago read more > |
| NS SRi said: This is an interesting program to enable both hill tribes and visitors to understand the differences. Moreover, to support the hile ... about this idea. - 528 days ago read more > |
| Virginia Fuchs said: This is a project worthy of acclaim and recognition. I live in Thailand and have personally witnesed the disintegration of the values ... about this idea. - 528 days ago read more > |