Developing Ethnic Tourism in Yunnan, China: Shilin Sani

Abstract

Yunnan Province is developing scenic, geographically distinct minority areas for tourism including Shilin, “limestone forest” home of the Sani ethnic group. The Sani provide an example of indigenous tourism, a subtype of ethnic tourism differentiated by the control a group exerts in marketing their own culture and territory, resulting in sustainable development. Worldwide, ethnic minorities involved in tourism must face a paradoxical push for change from tourist trade which is based on the expectation that they will stay quaintly “ethnic”. A model of indigenous tourism explores articulation of state political economy, tourism capitalism and local ethnic group economy as a mode of promoting ethnic group maintenance through indigenous control of resources.