Tanzania, Arusha
Two Beers and a Different Person
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 →The Netherlands, Achterhoek
The Campsite That Outgrew the Farm
When the farm stopped paying its way, she started a small campsite instead — 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 →Tanzania, Arusha
Ask Before You Take the Picture
Maasai women on souvenir markets, shared profits, and the one thing tourists still get wrong: taking a photograph without asking first.
Read more →Vietnam, Sa Pa
Five New Hotels a Year
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 →Tanzania, Lushoto
Two Guesthouses, Two Standards
A guesthouse owner on the gap between the rooms he keeps for tourists and the ones he keeps for everyone else.
Read more →The Netherlands, Achterhoek
A Railroad Through the Quiet
Tourism has been good for business — a busier bakery, a new gallery, a gift shop that wasn't there before — but a planned freight railway through the nature reserve threatens the one thing his guests actually come for: the peace and quiet.
Read more →Tanzania, Lushoto
The Batiks Nobody Bought
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 →Tanzania, Arusha
A Contact Fee and a Photograph
A traditional healer on tourists cured of headaches, a government campaign against big families, and why having a son still matters most.
Read more →Tanzania, Longido — Cultural Tourism Programme
A Week to Change a Price
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 →Tanzania, Lushoto
Ten Pots for the Price of One Fee
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.
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