ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the roles of tourism entrepreneurs and their perceptions of ethnic tourism development. Tourism entrepreneurs are one of the key stakeholders in ethnic tourism and their perspectives are crucial to understanding the issues related to ethnic tourism. In recent years, the Banna government has advocated the combined development of the cultural and tourism industries in order to improve the cultural quality of tourist products. State regulation of the tourism sector is relatively tight in Banna due to a host of issues in the tourism market. Tourism enterprises with different ownership all tend to cooperate with the local government to gain political and/or economic capital. As ethnic tourism creates opportunities for minority people to improve their livelihoods and promote their identity, it also promotes cultural evolution and changes in traditional life. Tourism entrepreneurs generally are well aware of the power of economic development and cultural evolution, particularly that acculturation has challenged the exotic ways of minority life.
