Articles

Tourism with A Mission

Amid the ruinous onslaught of commercialized travel, his micro-model of sustainable cultural preservation can work wonders.

Jokhang Monastery, Tibet’s most sacred pilgrimage site is to Buddhists what Mecca is to Muslims. Inside, yak butter candles burn dim, sending a natural radiant glow that illuminates the Jowa image of Sakyamuni, the first Buddha. Hundreds of Tibetans prostrate at the door outside.

The solemn mood is shattered by a Chinese tour guide blathering away to a group following his yellow flag: “Do you see that Buddha, the one everyone is bowing before. It is antique, made of real gold. I said real gold! Can you imagine how much it is worth? Can you see all the jewels encrusted in it? They are real too—not fake! So just imagine how much all of this is worth!”

Such insensitive tourism has plagued China, ruining some of its most magnificent, pristine natural environments and eroding delicate ancient cultures. But such problems are not new to China alone. Many of America’s natural vistas and indigenous cultures face similar obliteration through globalization of crass commercialism. It has even spoiled many vacation escapes in Asia, causing travelers to go elsewhere.

In contrast, sensitive cultural travel—often called heritage or eco-tourism—can preserve, sustain and evolve local ethnicity. Such alternative destination travel approach can provide fulfilling vacation experiences and exchanges of values between cultures. Whether for jetsetters or backpackers, the search for this experience in its many forms is increasingly becoming a trend in Asia.

My own experience developing the Red Capital Club and Residence concept evolved from a driving concern to preserve Beijing’s unique architectural courtyard house heritage. While the Beijing municipal government bulldozed all the buildings that defined the rich heritage of this ancient capital, we sought to preserve neighborhoods through grass-roots efforts, acquiring and restoring courtyard houses, and calling craftsmen back from retirement and putting them to work with a sense of identity. By preserving courtyards on three separate streets and extensive lobbying, an entire neighborhood was preserved, possibly the only historic one left in Beijing, whose architecture today looks like a bad mock-up of Las Vegas.

We extended the concept to a natural mountain reserve along the Great Wall outside Beijing that was originally slated for flooding and development by local authorities. Using the preservation model of architectural space being kept at a minimum in relation to nature, we created a barely visible traditionally designed village tucked into the mountainside, preserving ancient wood and stonework while providing it with modern amenities. Staffed by ethnic Tibetans working under our own affirmative action program, Red Capital Ranch at the Great Wall is intended to serve as Beijing’s first ecotourism lodge. Through this project, vast tracts of open Natural Mountain and the Great Wall have been protected from damage due to local insensitive approaches to tourism.

In 2003, while we were filming documentaries in the ethnic regions of western China, Tibet Governor Xiangba Pingcuo invited me to share experiences. I used the opportunity to lobby the Lhasa municipality to preserve the city’s old historic quarter as a foundation step towards developing culturally sensitive destination travel.

In 2005, we bought two-heritage building and restored them last year, reviving an entire neighborhood while setting an example of what can be done with care and attention to local culture and heritage. Only Tibetan craftsmen and women were engaged in the restoration process, ensuring authenticity of preservation. All lanterns, furnishings, pillow cases, bed spreads and ceramic dining ware were made by families living in the old quarter of Lhasa, making the effort an integrated community project. By restoring and opening the House of Shambhala boutique heritage hotel in Lhasa, we established a micro-model of sustainable cultural preservation, founding a social enterprise to spread these approaches and their underlying ideals. Today, House of Shambhala is a flagship of Shambhala social enterprise.

With the Shambhala restorations serving as platform, we launched a series of micro-equity enterprises ranging from The Tibetan Jewelry Revival (most jewelry on the Lhasa market are imported from Nepal or India), Save the Tibetan Tiger Rug commune (most tiger rugs sold in Lhasa are synthetic and made in Beijing or Shanghai—we use natural wool and dyes, reviving the craft among village woman), Tibet Children’s Initiative (where handicapped women Produce children’s puppets and dolls), Mala Bead Breakfast Club (nomad women and nuns designing high-fashion prayer beads), among other projects.

Micro equity differs from microcredit in that we invest instead of lend, becoming ourselves stakeholders in businesses that must be connected to cultural preservation through the evolution of a sustainable commercial social enterprise. Emphasis is on empowering marginalized women and the handicapped with their own sense of self-pride, identity and accomplishment.

Without sustainable economic foundations, culture cannot survive and evolve and will instead go into a museum when mass corporate tourism run by national or multinational operators takes over. This is the kind of globalization of insensitive commercialism we wish to avoid and even try to reverse.

Even our spas at House of Shambhala and Red Capital Ranch use only natural medicinal oils made by handicapped Tibetans or Nepalese NGOs working with mountain communities, and incense made from Tibetan herbal medicines produced by handicapped Tibetans. We are supporting a program of Tibetan yoga revival emphasizing putting meditation back into “yoga”, which is a lot more than just stretching. Reviving holistic approaches to living is a core principle of our travel concept and lifestyle outlook.

We have established a rural school providing free Montessori education to over a hundred impoverished children, medical clinics in monasteries where monks and nuns are trained as paramedics and mobile medical clinics reach out to nomads in remote highlands. One of our themes is empowering monks and nuns by establishing medical clinics within monasteries, allowing sustainable income to the monastery that traditionally serves a community function both as psychological support and provider of traditional Tibetan medicine.

Increasingly, we have guests who wish not only to visit our projects, in addition to Tibet’s historic and religious sites, but also to volunteer time and energy in helping us either as professionals—such as doctors or teachers giving first-hand training—or in raising funds to support and expand such outreach efforts. Many are now offering their vacation times to help others through our different programs.

More and more travelers are rethinking the notion of what is a good vacation. Following the 2004 tsunami crisis in Southeast and South Asia, many volunteered to help with rescue efforts and rebuilding villages. Many are finding that time spent helping others is more satisfactory than playing golf.

We intend to build at least three more centers across Tibet over the next four years, each built on the concept of locally integrated heritage restoration or eco-tourism, offering exploration of local culture and nature as part of the experience with an opportunity to out reach through connected education and medical programs serving villages and nomads in the region.

Shambhala action initiatives support alternative approaches to development. Programs in Tibet serve as collective models of what can be achieved in diverse ethnic regions within China and in other countries facing dilemmas of cultural identity during economic transition.

Small is beautiful and often more effective than large-scale economic growth models derived in isolation from local realities. We believe in solving concrete problems at the grass-roots, working with actual people and the conditions they must face, and are uninterested in textbook formulas. A little effort with resources focused in the right place can dramatically change lives for better.

Moreover, the building blocks for sustainable development lie in the cultures of the peoples concerned. They have the right to determine the direction of their own economic development and cultural identity. Representative political institutions should be developed on these foundations. If not, they too cannot be sustainable.

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