ABSTRACT
The development of an international craft market and industry, reviving lost or declining practices and styles, renders the label tourist arts inadequate, or at best misleading. While only a limited number of objects continued to be produced for tribal use, the production of crafts for an outside market grew in importance. The role of intermediaries in the economic development of local communities in developing countries, particularly the impact on indigenous communities, has been at best, paternalistic, and at worst, exploitative, whether led by dominant societies represented by state governments, or western agencies and industry. Markets are often the prime source of souvenir and artefact, the closest many tourists get to local interaction beyond the hospitality industry. A critical mass of crafts activity, even in small villages, provides both stimulation and a diversity of production and skills, which produces cross-fertilization and cross-trading, as well as economies of scale in production.
