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Development Partner’s Projects Bland and Banal: The UN
The UN’s special rapporteur for extreme poverty and human rights, Philip Alston, visited Laos in March and got an earful. “A number of people complained to me that many of the events organised by the UN in Vientiane were very carefully orchestrated…are not designed to give a platform for diverse voices,” he said. “Rather than trying to promote projects that really would help the government and really would address some of the many shortcomings, they just come up with rather bland or banal projects because they’re keen to make sure the money is spent.” The same can be said for for other donor agency projects, including tourism. Source: The New Humanitarian
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Luang Prabang Braces for Chinese Tourism Hordes
Luang Prabang is attracting increasing numbers of Chinese tourists, and this surge in popularity is creating communication challenges for hotel and restaurant owners when large groups arrive. The ongoing Visit Laos-China Year campaign is expected to deliver higher numbers to Luang Prabang and other northern provinces. The city is currently riding a wave of popularity with Chinese visitors, with some travelling in groups of hundreds of vehicles, Deputy Director of the Luang Prabang provincial Information, Culture and Tourism Department, Soudaphone Khomthavong told the Vientiane Times. As a result, more Chinese restaurants are opening to cater to their culinary tastes. “We recommend that restaurants add Chinese language to their menus so people can order the food they like,” Mrs Khomthavong said. Thai and Chinese citizens have been coming to Luang Prabang in big numbers for several years, and local authorities expect Chinese tourists to top the visitor’s chart this year. Officials say when sizeable groups of Chinese come to Luang Prabang, communication with staff at guesthouses, hotels and restaurants can be somewhat troublesome as the Chinese cannot speak English, French, or Lao. About 655,000 tourists of all nationalities visited the province last year, and tourism officials hope to boost the number to 700,000 by 2020. They say Luang Prabang can currently welcome about 10,000 tourists per day, but some worry about the sustainable future of tourism if visitor numbers rise further during peak times. Source: Vientiane Times
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Italian Fashion House Max Mara Rips Off Lao Ethnic Group
Max Mara Fashion Group, a multi-billion dollar Italian couture fashion house plagiarised traditional designs of the Oma ethnic minority group in their Spring/Summer 2019 collection. The patterns appeared in dresses, skirts and blouses presented in the collection’s “Max Mara Weekend” resort line. The Oma, a small ethnic community living in the hills of Phongsaly Province in northern Laos, embroider, stitch, and appliqué these colorful designs onto their traditional clothing, including head scarves, jackets, and leg wraps. Max Mara digitally duplicated and printed the designs onto fabric, reducing painstaking, traditional motifs to factory-produced patterns. The colours, composition, shapes, and even placement, are identical to the original Oma designs. Max Mara’s design and marketing team has not acknowledged or compensated the Oma in marketing, labeling, or display of the collection in their stores and online shop, nor have they responded to urgent enquiries on the issue.
