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Tourism in Laos blessing or calamity?

13/06/2019 829 Views
Tourism in Laos blessing or calamity?

It is a white and ocher house. One-storey high, adorned with a monk painted on the front, a staircase with two carved dragons, a roof erected like those of dozens of Buddhist temples around it. A building that summarizes the history of Franco-Laotian relations. "At the time of colonization, there were the French directors of the primary school. As a child, comedian Pierre Desproge, whose father was a teacher, lived there. After independence and the departure of the French, the government housed the district's education services there. The building has gradually fallen into ruin. Today, people are surprised to see its proud new look. These remarks are from Karine Amarine, director of the new Lao-French cultural center of Luang Prabang; a hyphen illustrating the current cooperation between the two countries. The best evidence is the fate of this city in northern Laos, which has become the country's leading tourist destination. An inconceivable fate, 15 years ago, when the ancient capital of the Kingdom of a million elephants (former name of Laos) vegetated on the banks of the Mekong.
In Laos, communism and tourism are no longer incompatible. Since the mid-1990s, the regime, one of the last survivors of the Soviet era, has opened up to the outside world. In 2008, 1 million 600 000 tourists visited the heart of the Indochinese peninsula. After gold mining, this activity is the second largest source of foreign exchange and offers 125,000 direct and indirect jobs.
 
 
In a Southeast Asia devoured by mass tourism, Laos has an asset; that of virginity. With 6 million inhabitants over 235,000 km2, it is a human desert where sustainable development of tourism is still possible. This is the will displayed by the Laotian authorities and, in the capital Vientiane, agencies offer "ecotourism" stays. Mistrust ! semantic abuse is common.
In Luang Prabang, it is the double legacy, royal and colonial, which is put forward to attract the tour operators and their circuits of the former French Indochina. But to persuade the agencies to make a step, it took a boost; the UNESCO World Heritage label. A decision taken in 1995, fruit of a joint initiative of the French cooperation and Laotian authorities.
Francis Engelmann, French urban planner, recalls the genesis of the project: "The site is in the heart of a privileged natural environment. The juxtaposition of a religious, pre-colonial and colonial architecture gives it exceptional value. The authorities wanted to develop tourism. To avoid its devastating effects, UNESCO has been solicited. "
To give the go-ahead, UNESCO takes into account the site's protection criteria. But Laos, a poor country without human, financial or technical resources, was struggling to offer them. The discussions resulted in a system of international collaboration led by a public authority; Heritage House, recently renamed: World Heritage Department of Luang Prabang. It was within the framework of a Laos-European Union partnership that Francis Engelmann worked for this entity for a while.
"Let's add that the site, unlike the vast majority of sites classified by UNESCO, is not made up of ruins. It is a living site. The stones do not complain, the inhabitants, they are more or less happy, they live, they want to develop. How to maintain the historical quality of the site without killing it? How to create more hotels without disfiguring it? A whole series of delicate questions arose. "
Labeling triggers the restoration of urban heritage; alleys, pagodas, colonial houses breathe a second youth. For the French side, the Center Region and the Agence Française de Développement are one of the main donors of the renaissance of the city, which, like the Lao-French cultural center, is once again becoming a national pride.
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Pass the years, flows a Mekong more and more frequented. It's the tourist boom. Where chickens roamed, we now cross armadas touk tuk, minibuses and taxis. The murmur of prayers, in the heart of the red and gold temples, is supplanted by the crush of cameras. Guest houses, internet cafes, restaurants have chased small traders and artisans.
Laurent Rampon, an architect at La Maison du Patrimoine, recalls his arrival in 1999: "There were almost no shops in the main street, cars were counted on the fingers of both hands. The improvement of the standard of living of the local population is indisputable but the atmosphere of the city, so particular, has changed. Tourism has changed the balance. "
On the economic level, the results are at the rendezvous. The city was in ruins, the roofs collapsed, the young people left. Today, there is work and opportunities. Many who had left him come back. Is this prosperity evenly distributed? No more, no less than elsewhere.
But the medal has a flip side. Real estate inflation forced local residents to leave the city center to sell or rent. At dawn, there are not many people to give rice to monks in saffron robes. The bonzes who live on charity are hungry. Their meditations and studies of the novices are disturbed by the tourist dance. Hence the desire of some venerable to exile. The spiritual and intangible heritage, taken into account in the process of labeling, is diluted in the tide of foreigners.
Land pressure also has effects on the environment. Pierre Guédant deals with the protection of ponds and wetlands on behalf of La Maison du Patrimoine: "A network of about 180 ponds has been classified. In addition to the visual aspect, it is a real hydraulic system. Wetlands are the target of urban pressure while they have a social and ecological function; they promote self-purification of polluted water. How to manage tourism and the resulting constraints in terms of water protection? ". A problem that extends to the outskirts of the city where wild urbanization is causing the filling of rice fields, cause insalubrity and floods.
The situation changed so quickly that in 2007, UNESCO sounded the alarm and stirred the specter of a possible withdrawal of Luang Prabang from the list of sites World Heritage. In response, the Laotian authorities have reinforced the protection measures of the site without it being possible to measure their impact.
For the nostalgic of the pre-tourist era of Luang Prabang, the damage is done. Labeling, cooperation with France or the European Union, the import of know-how did not make it possible to avoid the collateral effects of the tourist explosion. Others temperate. What would the city have become if Chinese promoters had elected it as a tourist destination without a concerted development plan?
Pierre Guédant takes a step back: "Labeling is a starting point. Otherwise, the priorities would be different. The development of the city would be primarily economic. Labeling allows external support, a reflection that is beneficial to a more harmonious development. This is not an end in itself. "
The future of Luang Prabang rests mainly in the hands of the Laotian authorities. "The city is at a crossroads. We will have to choose between two forms of tourism; a cultural tourism, favorable to the conservation of heritage of Luang Prabang and a sustainable development or mass tourism in which the city will lose its soul ", concludes Laurent Rampon. That the tourist blessing does not become a calamity; a dilemma which is imposed, in fact, on the whole of Laos.

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