Before Population and Community Development Associaiton (PDA-Chiang Rai) started the community-based tourism (CBT) project at Ban Lorcha, tourists would come by the bus-load, disgorge the visitors at the village entrance who would promptly start snapping photos of the Akha people. Since no entrance fees were collected, villagers could only earn money if sold souvenirs or received payment in exchange for being photographed. Imagine the ire you would incur if you took a photo and did not pay the person you photographed. This type of tourism made villagers become beggars within their own village.
Clearly, a new form of village visit was required. PDA-Chiang Rai, in cooperation with the Pacific-Asia Travel Association or PATA launched the community-based tourism project at Ban Lorcha to give villagers more control over tourism activities at their villagers. The project made the villagers owners of the tourism activity.
The CBT project at Ban Lorcha is owned by the village bank established by PDA in the mid-1990s. This form of management makes sure that nobody in the village can dominate the tourism activity for selfish purposes. Through this CBT project all households at Ban Lorcha has equal opportunity for participating and earning money from tourism activities.
Ban Lorcha charges an entrance fee of Bt 80 per person.
For more information, please contact the address shown below:
| AWARDS: This Community-based Tourism Project at Ban Lorcha was awarded the Kinnaree Award for its culture-based tourism activity in Northern Thailand during the 7th Tourism Awards of the Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT) for the year 2008. This award is testimony to this successful model of tourism in which villagers are the owners, operators and leaders in their own destiny. The Community-based Tourism Project at Ban Lorcha was awarded the First Innovative Tourism Product Award by the Pacific-Asia Travel Association (PATA) during the 7th Mekong Tourism Forum in Yangon, Union of Myanmar April 2002. |