ABSTRACT
This chapter presents local views with folk wisdom and collective experiences from remote villages on development policies and community participation through tourism planning processes in various ethnic communities in the Mekong Region, and in one particular border region in Northern Thailand the tourism gateway to Myanmar and Laos along the Mekong River. It investigates how ethnic communities perceive the problems and benefits of local participation in the tourism planning process, and how inhabitants perceive the various impacts of tourism development. In 1992, with the assistance of the Asian Development Bank (ADB), the Greater Mekong Subregion (GMS) countries entered into a program of subregional economic cooperation, designed to enhance economic relations among the various member countries. The objective of the GMS tourism program is to foster development of tourism in the GMS by stimulating demand from appropriate high-yielding tourist markets.
