April 10-17, 2006 issue - Nobody much likes tourists. They have a reputation for being loud, rude and disruptive. They are blamed for everything from prostitution to environmental degradation. "They want to have a good time, they are not well informed and want a short 'wow' factor," says Xavier Font, professor of tourism management at Britain's Leeds Metropolitan University. "Many locals see tourists as stupid."

Yet tourism may in fact be the true salvation of humankind's cultural heritage. After all, it's the main countervailing force to internationalization—that is, the global blah of TV, T shirts, tract housing, fast-food chains, business suits, malls and brand names. Internationalization has, in practice, been a process of everyone's coming to live and act the same; the Japanese gave up their kimonos because they were considered "unmodern," while Beijing destroyed its old city for the same reason. But tourists are looking for something old and something different—and they'll pay for it.

The effect can be seen across the globe, rescuing traditional cities and cultures from the brink of extinction. Just five years ago the indigenous community of the Cayapas

lived in little concrete houses with television sets, having moved from the banks of the Canandé River in northwestern Ecuador to settle alongside the highway. They had nearly all abandoned the traditional hand-woven garb of their ancestors, and instead donned Nikes. "That's what progress meant to them," says Pedro Armendáriz, a tourism and development-planning engineer based in Quito. "It meant wearing tennis shoes and jeans, and having a TV so all the women could watch their soap operas every day."

Thanks to an influx of tourists, things have recently changed for the Cayapas. With visitors coming in search of community, or ethnic, tourism—to eat, work and often even live with the indigenous people—the Cayapas are embracing the nearly forgotten culture of their ancestors. Once again, they are wearing traditional clothes, building old-style homes and using traditional agricultural techniques. "They have become a sustainable community microbusiness, with a preservationist conscience, because they have understood that their indigenous roots are what interest tourists," says Armendáriz. "[It makes them] value their ancestral culture."

The situation is similar throughout Latin America, where interest in cultural and ecological tourism has been on the rise in recent years. Tourism to Guatemala, for example, with its Mayan heritage, lush rain forests and lakes surrounded by volcanoes, has doubled in the past decade to nearly 2 million foreign visitors a year. Their dollars have kept young indigenous women interested in learning the specialized craft of weaving on the Mayans' backstrap looms, says Alejandrina Silva, head of the Guatemalan Tourism Ministry's Cultural Heritage Office. "Indigenous artisanry forms an important part of the Guatemalan touristic product," she says. "If this were not the case, such crafts could die off and the younger generations would have to look for new trades that would allow them to survive."

Indeed, the souvenir trade—often maligned for promoting kitsch—can almost singlehandedly keep fading cultures alive. In the Tatra National Park in Zakopane, in southern Poland, the highlander tradition of making smoked sheep cheese—dying out among the younger generation—has earned a new lease on life thanks to tourists' desire for unforgettable souvenirs. Highlanders make the cheese, or oscypek, in their huts, forming it by hand and smoking it over a fire. Visitors feel free to chat with the locals as they watch, have a taste of the cheese and a glass of fresh goat's milk; most leave some money. They also snatch up the traditional clothing, wool hats, slippers and jackets—as well as sheep and goat cheese—on sale all over the city.

Whole cities owe their existence to tourism. After being designated World Heritage sites, Lijiang in southwestern China and Luang Prabang in Laos became meccas for tourists and, as a result, have managed to preserve their traditional feel. In Japan, tourism has sparked a new interest in Kyoto's old wooden machiya town houses, which were previously discarded as junk. Now real-estate agents specialize in finding and restoring machiya, and entrepreneurs fix them up as restaurants, boutiques or inns.

Of course the effects of tourism are not purely benign. Eventually tourism transforms old towns into something fundamentally different. Behind the façades of old houses in Lijiang, for example, you will find few original inhabitants today. They have been displaced by outside businessmen selling tourist trinkets. "The old places take on new clothes," Susan Fainstein, a professor at Columbia University and author of a book on tourism, "The City Builders," has said. "The real places are scurrying to remake themselves to match the expectations of what people think they should be." Over time, tourism itself becomes a town's raison d'être. Nevertheless, a trinket-selling Lijiang is better than no Lijiang at all, and in the context of modern China's uncontrolled and breakneck development, the survival of a town like this verges on the miraculous.

Tourism is not just about preserving old cultures; it can also influence modern ones. Catering to tourist whims provides a quick education for fledgling entrepreneurs, from the little boys in Angkor Wat pushing postcards, to the people who run small travel agencies, bed-and-breakfasts and coffee shops. Backpackers in particular, who have created their own cities-within-cities such as Khaosan Road in Bangkok, have sparked entrepreneurs to invent entirely new businesses, including herbal spas, meditation centers and home-stay programs.

For developed countries, tourism can help maintain a healthy competitive edge. Consider Japan, which until recently did not feel the need to court foreign travelers, and in the process nearly fell off the tourist map. The country ranks only 30th in the world as a tourist destination—about the same as Tunisia and Croatia. Without overseas visitors' clamoring for special services, hotels and inns rarely offer Internet access, ATM and mobile-phone networks won't link up with the rest of the world, and design and amenities at resorts lag behind world standards. Without tourists, modern culture fails to take the next step.

Of course, the biggest benefits of tourism may accrue to the tourists themselves. They go home having learned something about societies different from their own. And that, in the end, may do more good for the local cultures they visited than any amount of dollars. "When tourists from the Western world go to Third World countries, it increases the locals' pride in their own culture," says Ranjan Bandyopadhyay, a professor of tourism at Britain's Nottingham University. "Tourism is the avenue on which we can exchange our cultures and learn from each other. Tourism brings peace." Not to mention some really unforgettable smoked sheep-cheese souvenirs.

With Kasia Gruszkowska in London and Daniela Perdomo in Paris