Tourism, Gender and Development in the Third World: A Case Study from Northern Laos

Abstract

Women play a peculiar role in tourism. In general, it is more difficult for women to access the profits coming from tourism. This is often due to social expectations regarding gender as well as social restrictions on women, which exist in the countries themselves. In the case of a sustainable tourism project working with the Akha, an ethnic minority in Northern Laos, the gender question was raised, but experts were rather unsure of how best to integrate women actively in the project. Those who had a stake in the discussion felt as if giving a more active role to women from an ethnic minority would disturb the traditional image of the culture and traditional gender roles which tourists long for. Ethnic women in Laos are thought to represent the traditional lifestyle, and to subsist in more passive roles rather than participating actively. The concerns surrounding cultural and social change were so strong that ethnic minority women, who were already benefiting from tourism through the selling of souvenirs, were excluded from sustainable tourism projects. The concepts of cultural conservation, rather present in the scientific and international debate about sustainable tourism, are, in this case, conflicting with the interests of ethnic minority women by limiting their involvement in such projects. The article argues that only if the question of gender equality is taken more seriously can these conflicts between global ideas and local interests, as well as possible ways to resolve them, become clear and understandable.