In two regions where tourism is of considerable economic importance, eastern Asia and the Pacific, there have been remarkably few studies of the impacts of tourism in rural areas. Moreover, the shift towards ecotourism, touted as a more environmentally benign form of tourism, has extended the reach of tourism into more remote and fragile environments. This shift has drawn more local people in rural and remote areas into a partly tourism economy, involving them as participants in the tourist industry. Yet little is known about who have been the beneficiaries of these developments.