What effect is tourism having on the local way of life?

Are jobs and wealth being created? Is the tourist industry investing in the education and skills of the local workforce? Are families encouraged to interrupt their childrens education by lucrative begging or hawking opportunties?

If beggars can earn 10 times the average local wage of economically and social beneficial activity e.g. farming, teaching - how does this affect the life choices of future generations. In short, is tourism acting as a positive or negative agent for the development of a sustainable local economy?

So, how well did our Eco-Lodge measure up?

Well, there are undoubtedly some good things going on here. All the dozen or so staff have been recruited from the local village and are being trained in toursim, right the way up to the Manager. The Lodge also provides financial support for the local school and has paid for a well, thus ensuring the village has access to clean safe drinking water.

They also run an elephant camp, using elephants rescued from working in the logging industry. Whether or not forcing them to carry western tourists instead represents a significant improvement in their lives I'm not really sure - and I can't help thinking that their rescue from logging may be linked rather more closely to the acquisition of more effective machinery, so any environmental considerations could be questionable.

What I found beyond question were the living conditions of the 2 monkeys supposedly rescued from illeagal captivity for a better life. The cage was far too small, and with nothing more than a frayed nylon rope and a rusting tin can to keep them amused it fell far short of what I would consider worthy of Eco credentials. More than anything else it caused me to question the primary motivation of the whole enterprise.

Which brings me on to the question of the money. At 80% occupancy (and it was full every night we stayed there) this place is grossing around $2000 per week before any restaurant receipts or tours are taken into consideration - I'm guessing these could easily be the same again at $40 for a half day elephant trek. So, even if the staff are on exceptionally good wages (the average locally is $1 per day) my back of a fag packet calculations suggest a profit margin of at least 50% is being made - possibly even more. We discovered from the staff that ownership rests with a European who lives in Loas for only part of the year, giving rise to a suspicion that much of the revenue may not be ending up in the local economy.

I don't think this means the Eco-lodge can be considered a bad thing overall - there is a lot of positive activity that simply wouldn't be happening if it weren't there at all. I just couldn't help thinking that spending my money with a locally owned alternative would have had a measurably better impact on the local economy.

My thoughts turned back to our recent month in Mongolia and just how different things could be. We stayed with a local guesthouse who organised all the logistics for a 3 week tour of the country. As well as the domestic jobs we were supporting while we stayed at the guesthouse, our tour provided 2 local people (driver and guide) with 21 days full time employment. I got a sneaky look at the accounts for the trip and discovered a whopping 40% of the tour price was spent locally on food, accomodation, local guides, horse rental and fuel for the jeep.

We stayed in local accomodation (mostly Ger's), ate the same food and learnt to appreciate the nomadic way of life. This kind of trip put no abnormal strain on local resources - rather by placing a value on the local culture we hoped it would help to preserve it. For sure it didn't carry any of the Eco-rhetoric designed to give you that warm do-gooder feeling - but I could be absolutely confident that every penny we spent was making it's way into the hands of local people in the places we visited.

For me, the true essence of responsible travel is found in independent travel. It's about cutting out the middleman and getting a better deal for yourself and the people who live in your destination. It's about having a basic respect for the people and places we visit. But most of all it's about having lots of fun and doing it with a smile. Happy travels.

Mark Fretwell is a marketing graduate with 17 years experience in industry. He is currently taking a year off the corporate treadmill to travel the world with his partner Mel and writing
his blog Leeds to Laos and Beyond .

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