Recognising its importance, the Lao government has declared tourism to be one of the top three priority areas for socio-economic development, with a target of 1.2 million tourist arrivals by 2010. Significant investment has already been committed to the upgrading of the tourism infrastructure and plans are currently being prepared for the establishment of a tourism marketing and promotion board and the adoption of a master plan for tourism development.

At the present time by far the greatest proportion of foreign tourists visiting Laos are those from neighbouring countries of the Asia Pacific region. In 2004 this group made up 81.59 per cent of the total number, incorporating the two largest visitor groups from Thailand (489,677, 54.72 per cent of the total) and Việt Nam (130,816, 14.62 per cent of the total). Other major national groups visiting the country in 2004 included Americans (37,181, 4.16 per cent of the total), Chinese (33,019, 3.69 per cent of the total), French (27,806, 3.11 per cent of the total), British (27,402, 3.06 per cent of the total), Japanese (20,319, 2.27 per cent of the total), Australians (15,149, 1.69 per cent of the total) and Germans (14,009, 1.57 per cent of the total). At present few figures are available for domestic tourism, but this is also believed to be on the increase.

Market research of recent years has shown consistently that the cultural heritage scores highly amongst the country’s visitor attractions – in 2004 56 per cent of the 1,417 international visitors surveyed at Wattay International Airport claimed to have been drawn to Laos mainly by its culture, 39 per cent by its temples and monuments, 54 per cent by its natural beauty and 23 per cent by its ethnic minorities. The consequence for tourism has been that to date around 80-90 per cent of all tourism has focused on relatively short visits to the country’s two main cultural centres of Vientiane and Luang Prabang.

In practice, the main focus of cultural tourism to Laos has been the former royal capital of Luang Prabang, which was awarded World Heritage status in 1995 for its ‘exceptional example of fusion’ between traditional architecture, Lao urban design and the structures built by colonial authorities in the 19th and 20th centuries. In the years which followed that award the town’s tourist infrastructure expanded exponentially. Many local people were displaced as hotels, guest houses, restaurants and souvenir shops sprang up everywhere, often in contravention of building regulations, while at the same time numerous historic buildings were renovated with little regard for authenticity.

Realising that urgent action was required to deal with the unplanned and inappropriate development in Luang Prabang, the government established a National Inter Ministerial Co-ordinating Committee for the Protection and Development of Cultural, Historic and Natural Heritage by Prime Ministerial Decree in 1996. This was followed in 1997 by the Presidential Decree on the Preservation of Cultural, Historic and Natural Heritage, which outlined regulations and measures for the management, conservation, preservation and use of the national heritage, including the upgrading of movable and immovable assets with historical or cultural or natural value into national heritage.

In Luang Prabang itself an inter-institutional body known as the Provincial Committee for the Protection and Development of Luang Prabang Heritage was also set up in 1996 with support from UNESCO to bring together the key stakeholders in the Luang Prabang World Heritage site, namely the Luang Prabang Provincial Government, the Luang Prabang Provincial Service of Information and Culture, the Luang Prabang Provincial Tourism Office and the Luang Prabang Service of Construction, Transport, Posts and Communication. Since that time all construction work carried out within the protected area - whether for new structures or for renovation of old buildings - has required its agreement. In the same year the Maison du patrimoine (Heritage House) was established under the auspices of the Luang Prabang-Chinon (France)-UNESCO World Heritage Centre Co-operation Project as a technical office within the Luang Prabang Provincial Service of Information and Culture; this now acts as the Committee’s executive arm and secretariat, offering advice on all building permit requests and developing regulations and plans for safeguarding and developing the Luang Prabang World Heritage protected area and buffer/support zones. A parallel initiative, UNESCO’s Cultural Survival and Revival in the Buddhist Sangha Project, is currently training monks in the traditional arts and crafts skills needed to properly care for, preserve and conserve their temples.

Similar measures are currently being implemented for the heritage sites of Wat Phu Champassak and the Plain of Jars, regulating construction and requiring all new buildings in those areas to conform with regulations in respect of size, style and building materials used.

However, with 105,513 foreigners and an unquantified but undoubtedly substantial number of Lao tourists visiting Luang Prabang (a tiny city of 30,000 inhabitants) in 2004 and visitor numbers at Wat Phu Champassak and the Plain of Jars also showing significant increases in recent years, the Lao authorities recognise the urgent need to diversify the tourism sector in order to take spread the load more evenly. As a result, the LNTA is currently placing the development of ecotourist attractions at the core of its official tourism development strategy.

The LNTA’s National Ecotourism Strategy and Action plan 2004-2010, produced with advice from the SNV Netherlands Development Organisation, sets out the framework for the development of ecotourism in Laos by: strengthening the institutional arrangements for planning and managing ecotourism growth; supporting training, capacity building and the promotion of good practice; supporting environmental protection and nature conservation; providing socio-economic development and cultural heritage protection for host communities; and developing ecotourism research and information.

One particular Lao ecotourism project has been operating with success for several years. The UNESCO Nam Ha Ecotourism Project in Luang Namtha Province is being implemented by the LNTA in co-operation with the Lao Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, the Luang Namtha Provincial Service of Forestry Resource Conservation and the Luang Namtha Provincial Service of Information and Culture. The UNESCO Office of the Regional Advisor for Culture in Asia and the Pacific is the project’s executing agency and provides technical assistance and monitoring. The project itself is funded by grants from the government of New Zealand and the International Finance Corporation (IFC). The objectives of the project are: to ensure that tourism contributes to the conservation of Laos’ natural and cultural heritage; to involve local communities in the development and management of tourism activities; to use tourism as a tool for integrated rural development; to provide training and human capacity building skills to tourism providers and local communities; to integrate public and private sector investment in culturally and environmentally sustainable tourism; and to assist communities to establish cultural and nature tourism activities in and around the Nam Ha National Biodiversity Conservation Area (NBCA). The UNESCO Nam Ha Ecotourism Project has received the UNDP Award for Poverty Alleviation and the British Airways Tourism for Tomorrow Award.

Promotion of community-based eco-tourism is also an important focus of the four-year US$14.2 million Mekong Tourism Development Project, currently the LNTA's flagship programme, which was launched in 2003 in partnership with the Asian Development Bank. This project, which also covers Cambodia and Việt Nam, seeks to improve tourism-related infrastructure, support pro-poor, community-based sustainable tourism in rural areas and strengthen sub-regional co-operation with a view to facilitating the flow of tourists in and between the three countries.

An important component of the Mekong Tourism Development Project is the Pro-poor Community-based Tourism Development programme, which is similar in format to the Nam Ha project but covers four provinces - Luang Namtha, Luang Prabang, Khammouane and Champassak. This programme aims to assist local communities with distinctive rural lifestyles or living in areas with pristine ecosystems to manage and determine their limits to tourism growth, to increase control over the selection of tourist types and modalities, and to equitably distribute tourism benefits. It is envisaged that it will develop pilot eco-tourism and village-based tourism projects, foster the conservation and improvement of the cultural and environmental heritage of selected areas, monitor social impacts, promote the role of women, and establish mitigation measures to minimise negative impacts due to increased tourism.