formerly Retour Foundation
All the stories on this page are Tourism Voices Originals, collected in the first phase of the project. We are currently re-creating the stories and updating regularly. Please contact us if you are interested in presenting your stories or creating new stories with us.
Curaçao
Everyone in Punda's market calls her Zus β "sister" β a name she's carried since she was a girl small enough to disappear behind the pots. Her mother started the stall decades ago; Zus never really left. Now the government wants to tear the market down.
Read more βIndonesia, Bali
Before the 1980s, I Made Mangku says, life on Bali moved at the pace of the rice fields and the tide. A piece of fish, some rice, and people were happy. Then the island was marketed to the world as paradise, and paradise started filling up.
Read more βLaos, Luang Namtha
There aren't enough trekking bookings in Luang Namtha for anyone to guide full-time, so the guides here take turns and fill the rest of the week teaching at the local school or working other jobs. Still, one of them says, it's genuinely good work.
Read more βTanzania, Ng'iresi
As secretary of the village committee in Ng'iresi, most of his work is advising farmers β he can't offer them money, since there simply isn't a fund for that, but he can offer guidance. The government pays him for the role, though he still keeps his own farm going.
Read more βVietnam, Sapa
Women in Sapa carry a lot at once, she explains: being a good wife, helping support the family's income, and holding on to the traditions, values, and family life that keep the community together. In her eyes, that makes women and men equal, even if the work looks different.
Read more βCosta Rica, Tamarindo
He was still in school when he started working the front desk of a hotel in Tamarindo, trying to pick up English and get comfortable with computers along the way. The female tourists liked him, and before long he was going out most nights β drinking, smoking, something he'd rarely done before.
Read more βCosta Rica, Manuel Antonio
Tourism has been developing around Manuel Antonio since 1972, the conservationist says, and back then nobody here was really ready for it. But the banana plantations the region had depended on for decades were disappearing fast, and something had to replace them.
Read more βCosta Rica, Manuel Antonio
Tourism is now the third-largest part of the local economy, behind fishing and the palm plantations, a municipal official explains β though it runs almost entirely on a single season, from December through the summer.
Read more βCosta Rica, Manuel Antonio
The stretch that matters to tourists, a municipal representative explains, runs from Quepos to Manuel Antonio β barely ten kilometres end to end, but it carries the whole region's tourism economy on its back.
Read more βCosta Rica, Manuel Antonio
Tourism has undoubtedly brought development to the region, an older woman says β but it can be deceiving. From the outside it might look like everyone here is doing well. In reality, poverty is still widespread.
Read more βCosta Rica, Manuel Antonio
Tourism's greatest achievement, in her eyes, is what it's done for local schools β both the level of education and the sheer variety of courses now available have grown enormously.
Read more βCosta Rica, Manuel Antonio
Tourism is good for the local economy in Quepos and Manuel Antonio, a taxi driver says β but for people in his line of work, it's a stranger relationship than it looks.
Read more βCosta Rica, Manuel Antonio
Tourism has been good work for him, even if the hours aren't always kind β hotels need someone available around the clock, every day of the year. Still, the work is clean.
Read more βCosta Rica, Tamarindo
Tourism matters enormously to the local economy, she says β it has brought real job opportunities and better infrastructure to Tamarindo. As an elder, she stays active in a cultural dance group that works to keep the old traditions alive.
Read more βCosta Rica, Tamarindo
As teachers, they see tourism's influence on young people up close. It provides real jobs and income β enough that families eat better and stay healthier. Still, there's a question they keep coming back to.
Read more βCosta Rica, Tamarindo
Tourism means a great deal to the community, the entrepreneur says β genuinely profitable, even with three-quarters of the tourism businesses here foreign-owned. It provides work for at least three thousand people.
Read more βCosta Rica, Tamarindo
Tourism matters a great deal here, the religious leader says, though it arrived by way of loss. Agriculture and cattle-breeding once defined the local economy; as that land was sold off to foreigners, tourism became the only option.
Read more βCzechia, RoΕΎnov
In this region, tourism income mostly stays close to home, he says β by his estimate, roughly seventy percent of the businesses profiting from it are locally owned, mostly small and medium-sized operations.
Read more βCzechia, RoΕΎnov
For the municipality, what matters most about tourism is simple: employment, and a lot of it. Alongside that comes growing attention to local culture and better roads and water management.
Read more βCzechia, RoΕΎnov
For young people here, tourism mostly means work β more of it, and more choice in what kind. There's more to do now too: more places to play sports, more places to swim.
Read more βCzechia, RoΕΎnov
When Czechs first came into real contact with the outside world after the revolution, they were remarkably impressionable. Now, there's a genuine revival of local culture underway.
Read more βCzechia, RoΕΎnov
RoΕΎnov sits inside a protected area, and as an environmental organisation, the nature and culture here are things they genuinely hold close to heart.
Read more βDutch Caribbean, CuraΓ§ao
The head of the taxi drivers' union on double-decker buses, foreign-owned shops, and the mentality he wants his island to shed.
Read more βDutch Caribbean, CuraΓ§ao
An official from the youth and adult education department on tumba, forgotten instruments, and a culture policy that never quite met the tourism one.
Read more βDutch Caribbean, Bonaire
A conservationist on towels, batteries, and the sand-beach idea she hopes never gets built.
Read more βDutch Caribbean, Bonaire
A tourism employee on foreign management, vanishing trades, and why the tip matters more than people think.
Read more βDutch Caribbean, Bonaire
A Bonairian woman on independence, childcare, and what she wishes visitors understood before they unpack.
Read more βDutch Caribbean, CuraΓ§ao
Curaçao's youth on emigration, uniforms, and the carnival parade tourists still don't understand.
Read more βDutch Caribbean, Bonaire
Bonaire's youth on windsurfing friendships, a project called Hello Tourist, and an idea they think tourists should try.
Read more βDutch Caribbean, CuraΓ§ao
A Curaçao tourism expert on the friars, the stereotypes that outlived them, and what changes when the visitors stop being only Dutch.
Read more βDutch Caribbean, Bonaire
Bonaire's local government on the visitor cap, the Green Globe programme, and what tourism owes the island back.
Read more βEcuador, BahΓa de CarΓ‘quez
A coastal resource manager on rubbish bins, bird colonies, and a project that hands the mangroves back to the people who fish around them.
Read more βEcuador, BahΓa de CarΓ‘quez
A hotel owner and tour operator on why nobody in BahΓa relies on tourism alone, and what he'd like visitors to think about before they order a drink.
Read more βEcuador, BahΓa de CarΓ‘quez
A teacher on El NiΓ±o, an earthquake, and why she's careful not to give tourism more credit β or blame β than it deserves.
Read more βEcuador, BahΓa de CarΓ‘quez
A fisherman on selling more fish, paying more for everything else, and a new project trying to put fishermen inside the tourism economy instead of beside it.
Read more βEcuador, Cuyabeno β Playas de Cuyabeno
An Indigenous community member on the Flotel, a nearly lost language, and the old tradition of shared work that tourism accidentally revived.
Read more βEcuador, Cuyabeno
A Siona woman on souvenirs, corn, and a penalty system that keeps community work from falling apart.
Read more βEcuador, Cuyabeno β Zabalo
A member of the CofΓ‘n community of Zabalo on a joint venture with a tour operator, and traditions tourism helped bring back.
Read more βEcuador, Otavalo
The chairman of Otavalo's trade association on punctuality, intermarriage, and why tourism needs to be held loosely to survive at all.
Read more βEcuador, Otavalo
A farmers' organisation on rising shop prices, a homestay experiment with visitors from Spain, and a culture that doesn't quite have a word for recreation.
Read more βEcuador, Otavalo
A young teacher on cleaner streets, wider horizons, and a generation whose future keeps getting decided without them.
Read more βEcuador, Otavalo
An environment councillor on illiteracy, backpackers, and a municipality that funds appearances more than action.
Read more βEcuador, Otavalo
An Indigenous woman on emancipation, individualism, and OtavaleΓ±o musicians who travel the world and bring parts of it back home.
Read more βEcuador, Otavalo
An OtavaleΓ±o trader on middlemen, a shrinking length of stay, and a market that grew faster than the town could keep up with.
Read more βEcuador, Riobamba
A farmer on dollarization, a women's artesanΓa market that doesn't exist yet, and the case for keeping tour operators from taking over.
Read more βEcuador, Riobamba
A community tourism project on cycling, trekking, and why they'd rather run their own conservation work than wait for the national government to fund it.
Read more βEcuador, Riobamba
An educator on evangelical missionaries, machismo, and why she'd rather tourists not hand out candy to the local kids.
Read more βEcuador, Riobamba
A young woman on new bars, rising crime, and her hope that Riobamba doesn't turn into a town built only for visitors.
Read more βGhana, Volta Region β Tafi Atome
A cook at the tourism centre on feeding groups of twenty-five, a school renovation funded by a single visitor, and a forest she's no longer allowed to enter.
Read more βGhana, Volta Region β Tafi Atome
A guesthouse owner on new jobs in drumming and catering, a planned pottery workshop, and the handful of tourists who test her patience.
Read more βGhana, Volta Region β Tafi Atome
A young guide on double pricing, a pottery project in the works, and why he thinks tourists and locals should pay exactly the same.
Read more βGhana, Volta Region β Tafi Atome
A community member on ancestral rules, illegal cutting, and a cautious wish for more visitors despite everything.
Read more βGhana, Volta Region β Tafi Atome
An elder on children who now want school, cloth too expensive to wear every day, and a word β obruni β that's lost most of its charge.
Read more βGhana, Volta Region β Tafi Atome
A young woman on practising English with visitors, being told not to imitate them, and a disappointment she'd rather tourists avoided causing.
Read more βGhana, Volta Region β Amedzofe
A shopkeeper three years into the tourism project on rising costs, a village kept clean every day now, and decisions made by seven clans without him.
Read more βGhana, Volta Region β Amedzofe
A teacher on shifting gender roles at home, a forest ban that feels unfair, and why she still calls tourism eye-opening.
Read more βGhana, Volta Region β Amedzofe
A young man on a promise of jobs that mostly didn't arrive, a forest rule he calls unfair, and the fading novelty of being called obruni.
Read more βGhana, Volta Region β Amedzofe
A community elder on farmers giving up land for free, a school renovation funded by a grateful visitor, and why education matters more now.
Read more βGhana, Volta Region β Amedzofe
A 21-year-old guide on a tourist office founded with Peace Corps help, scholarships for local girls, and one polite request he'd never actually make.
Read more βIndia, Ladakh
A 76-year-old organic farmer and former head of the Ecological Centre on subsidised rice, a four-month tourist season, and beer that doesn't taste right anymore.
Read more βIndia, Ladakh
A farmers' organisation on subsidised competition, a jump in taxis every year, and an army presence that's quietly replaced the monastery as where sons go.
Read more βIndia, Ladakh
A short, pointed account of a place that never had a garbage problem until it suddenly did.
Read more βIndia, Ladakh
The president of the Women's Alliance Centre on a fading marriage tradition, a lesson learned the hard way, and why tourists are helping young Ladakhis love their own culture again.
Read more βIndia, Ladakh
Members of SECMOL on textbooks with nothing to do with Ladakh, two hours of electricity a day, and teachers sent here as a penalty.
Read more βIndonesia, Bali β Kuta
A Kuta taxi driver on a decade of tourism growth, a television bought on credit, and why he still can't afford a phone of his own.
Read more βIndonesia, Bali
A local NGO worker and coastal engineer on beaches that are washing away, hotels that import their own food, and a fake elephant he doesn't actually mind.
Read more βIndonesia, Bali
A Balinese journalist and NGO member on money that leaves the island as fast as it arrives, and a press column as his one working lever.
Read more βIndonesia, Bali
The secretary of Udayana University's Women's Study Centre on garment workers, literacy gaps between men and women, and a question about courtship she still can't let go of.
Read more βIndonesia, Bali
A tourism professor at Udayana University on hotels that drink the water supply first, a three-story building limit under pressure, and guides who get the culture wrong.
Read more βIndonesia, Bali β Denpasar
A 22-year-old student on cremations sold for a few dollars, a room boy who earns more in tips than in wages, and a bike theft that now keeps her sleeping at school.
Read more βIndonesia, Bali β Kerobokan
A member of the Wisnu Foundation on rice fields switched to Javanese seed, a democracy Bali had before Suharto, and the young people he says are drifting without direction.
Read more βLaos, Luang Namtha
A family running one of Luang Namtha's guesthouses on generators, trekkers passing through to China, and a town with nothing much to complain about.
Read more βLaos, Luang Namtha
A local guide on sacred entrances, mandatory briefings, and why unguided tourists keep making the same well-meaning mistakes.
Read more βLaos, Luang Namtha
A young woman on free schooling, borrowed fashion, and the quiet hope that tourism might fix what the town still can't.
Read more βNepal, Dolpa β Shey Phoksundo National Park
A park ranger on entrance fees paid a mountain range away, and a development plan still waiting to start.
Read more βNepal, Dolpa
The vice-chairman of Dolpa's Chamber of Commerce on local businessmen ready to invest, and the missing guarantee holding the whole system back.
Read more βNepal, Dolpa β Juphal
The only local hotel owner in Juphal on a house he never meant to rent out, and the rubbish that won't stop piling up.
Read more βNepal, Dolpa
A local guide on porters brought in from Everest, five percent English fluency, and schools kept afloat by tourist donations.
Read more βNepal, Dolpa
A Village Tourism Guide on avalanche deaths blamed on outside guides who didn't know the terrain.
Read more βNepal, Dolpa
The Vice-Chairman of Dolpa's District Development Committee on money that stops in Kathmandu and lodges closed by organised tour groups.
Read more βNepal, Dolpa
The Chief District Officer on herb-collecting income that dwarfs a year's wages, and Dolpa's case for staying a hidden treasure.
Read more βNepal, Dolpa β Dunai & Juphal
The chairman of a local tourism-development NGO on a language gap that won't close and a habit keeping local shopkeepers from getting ahead.
Read more βNepal, Dolpa β Dunai
A teacher and programme director on roots pulled up as firewood, and children singing Hindi songs instead of their own.
Read more βNepal, Dolpa
Dolpa's only active female Village Tourism Guide on a new life after leaving the alcohol trade.
Read more βNepal, Dolpa β Juphal
A local porter on being undercut by labour from the Everest region, and the one job on the mountain that comes with life insurance.
Read more βNepal, Taplejung β Kanchenjunga
Roughly a thousand young people leave Taplejung every year chasing better wages, most drifting home for a while before leaving again. Girls stay; boys go. The bigger fear at home isn't tourism β it's the Maoists, who've already banned beer and wine and now want Coca-Cola gone too.
Read more βNepal, Taplejung β Kanchenjunga
A trekker's hot shower can burn through a day's worth of firewood. Campsites in the alpine zone show the cost β rubbish, cut trees, uncovered toilet pits β much of it left behind not by the tourists themselves, but by the crews who carry their gear.
Read more βNepal, Taplejung β Kanchenjunga
The conservation fees tourists pay now sit in a bank account β a start, though not nearly enough to fix the road into the district. Organised trekking groups spend little locally, and independent travel won't even be allowed here until 2004.
Read more βNepal, Taplejung β Kanchenjunga
Handicrafts didn't sell β the materials were never good enough, and there was no money to buy better ones. What the women of Taplejung want instead is a guesthouse of their own to run, in a district where men's literacy rate still runs double that of women.
Read more βNepal, Taplejung β Kanchenjunga
Two-thirds of what trekking agencies spend is spent in Kathmandu, not here, and barely half of trips hire local porters at all. What would help most isn't more tourists β it's a road that doesn't wash out every monsoon.
Read more βNepal, Khumbu β Sagarmatha National Park
Six months of trekking season, six months without. Life in Khumbu still runs on farming as much as tourism, but the money β and now electricity, nearly everywhere β has changed what's possible here. What worries people most is growth nobody is steering.
Read more βNepal, Khumbu β Sagarmatha National Park
Outside guides and agents are moving in, and local competition means working for less just to keep the work. Food and basic goods have gotten pricier too β hardest on the people who aren't paid in tourist money.
Read more βNepal, Khumbu β Sagarmatha National Park
A worker with the Sagarmatha Pollution Control Commission on the rubbish tourists cause but rarely leave behind themselves β that's mostly down to local teashops and lodges. Untangling who's actually responsible is a job that never really ends.
Read more βNepal, Khumbu β Sagarmatha National Park
A teashop owner on how tourism rewired what Khumbu drinks and buys β imported beer instead of chang, bottled wine instead of raksi β with prices now high enough that locals and tourists pay exactly the same.
Read more βNepal, Khumbu β Sagarmatha National Park
Health posts and dental care that didn't exist before; children who argue more openly with their parents; neighbours quietly competing over whose house looks better. Tourism transformed daily life in Khumbu β she just wishes it hadn't cost the forest so much.
Read more βThe Netherlands, Achterhoek
Tourism has been good for business β a busier bakery, a new gallery, a gift shop that wasn't there before β but a planned freight railway through the nature reserve threatens the one thing his guests actually come for: the peace and quiet.
Read more βThe Netherlands, Achterhoek
When the farm stopped paying its way, she started a small campsite instead β and it's doing better than the farm ever did. Now she wonders whether farming, her husband's life's work, will be the thing they eventually give up.
Read more βThe Netherlands, Achterhoek
Most visitors to the Achterhoek's nature reserves are careful and curious. It's the mountain bikers β riding off-trail, no bell in sight β who keep her organisation busy explaining the same rules again and again.
Read more βThe Netherlands, Achterhoek
A leader in the local Turkish community on tourists as welcome guests, new shops and a swimming pool the town didn't have before β and a tradition of hospitality, he says, that's far older than tourism itself.
Read more βThe Netherlands, Achterhoek
New neighbours from the west, a busier card club, a nursing home that keeps growing β she's glad of most of it. What she'd really like is for the dial-a-bus they cancelled years ago to come back.
Read more βTanzania, Longido β Cultural Tourism Programme
The tourism project splits every shilling by an agreed formula, and even the guesthouse owner who manages it can't discount a room without calling a village meeting first.
Read more βTanzania, Arusha
Hotel owners on tourists who drink too much, guides who know what to say, and a community that has simply grown used to having visitors.
Read more βTanzania, Arusha
A young Maasai on school fees paid by tourism, a shrinking need for shepherds, and archery contests the visitors never manage to win.
Read more βTanzania, Arusha
An elder on children greeting tourists the easy way, a house built from money sent home by relatives in the city, and hope that tourism keeps growing.
Read more βTanzania, Arusha
A traditional healer on tourists cured of headaches, a government campaign against big families, and why having a son still matters most.
Read more βTanzania, Ng'iresi β Arusha
Ng'iresi's village secretary on a village tax made obsolete by tourism money, and a simple request: let the tourists keep coming.
Read more βTanzania, Arusha
Maasai women on souvenir markets, shared profits, and the one thing tourists still get wrong: taking a photograph without asking first.
Read more βTanzania, Lushoto
A guesthouse owner on the gap between the rooms he keeps for tourists and the ones he keeps for everyone else.
Read more βTanzania, Lushoto
A forest ranger on tourists who don't know the entrance fee is real, and neighbours who stop speaking to him once he's fined them.
Read more βTanzania, Lushoto
Teachers on a half-finished teachers' house, a school that still needs a typewriter, and children who dream in clothes they can't afford.
Read more βTanzania, Lushoto
A potter on a contact fee that pays more in a few minutes than a full day at the market, and daughters spending more time selling than in school.
Read more βTanzania, Lushoto
A hotel employee on foreign-only guests, complaints about slow-cooked meals, and why children start begging when tourists walk without guides.
Read more βTanzania, Lushoto
An elder on beggars who deserve sympathy, children who've turned to giving flowers instead, and photographs the village couldn't otherwise have.
Read more βTanzania, Lushoto
A businesswoman on a batik venture that never took off, and guests who complain about fixed prices they were never going to negotiate.
Read more βTanzania, Lushoto
A teenager on selling cups instead of attending class, and a teacher's house still waiting on a kitchen and a bathroom.
Read more βVietnam, Sa Pa
An elder on hill-tribe girls who leave school at six to sell souvenirs, and customs that fade a little more with every busload of tourists.
Read more βVietnam, Sa Pa
A forest ranger on an illegal climb up Fansipan that happens anyway, and guides who'd rather pay the fine than lose the work.
Read more βVietnam, Sa Pa
A local woman on unwritten equality between men and women, new cultural shows staged for tourists, and a town changing faster than anyone can control.
Read more βVietnam, Sa Pa
A teenage souvenir seller on splitting earnings with friends, learning English from tourists, and missing years of school she says she doesn't regret.
Read more βVietnam, Sa Pa
A hotel owner on booming competition, a town with no building rules, and land that, on paper, is never really his to sell.
Read more β