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Raising Awareness of Best Practices

Experience Mekong Showcases

Innovative showcases in the Lancang-Mekong Region

Every year, six members of the Experience Mekong Collection (EMC) are recognized as Experience Mekong Showcases – one of each country and category. For the third time, in 2020, we are awarding the Experience Mekong Showcases,  experiences that best showcase sustainable and inclusive travel in the Lancang-Mekong Region and inspire travelers and businesses to get engaged and make an impact on communities. 

 

This year, 60 businesses were nominated to become showcases. 18 were shortlisted and close to 10,000 public votes determined the final Experience Mekong Showcases.

2020 Showcases

The Living Irrawaddy Dolphin Project
The project strives to create positive and beneficial experiences for our hosts, guests and staff while supporting dolphin conservation and reducing negative impacts on the environment during our trips and in our daily operations.
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Là Hoa. Flowers Speak
Là Hoa provides employment for people with a sensory disability. Currently 46% of our team is a Person with Disability (PWD).
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Yangshuo Mountain Retreat
Yangshuo Mountain Retreat is unique among Yangshuo hotels for our commitment to sustainability and empowering the wonderful local people. The traditional double-walled mud brick construction makes the Farmhouse naturally cool in Summer and a great private getaway. the Yangshuo Mountain Retreat is one of the few eco hotels in China and we are dedicated to principles of sustainable tourism.
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The Family Tree
The Family Tree prioritizes environmentally friendly products and producers. However, the Family Tree team also recognizes that moving village crafts towards strict environmental sustainability is a long-term process. To balance this, the team works very hard to plant and replenish natural resources, especially trees.
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The Elephant Valley Project
The purpose of the project is to firstly improve the health and welfare of the captive elephants in Mondulkiri Province, and work to conserve the wild elephants’ natural habitat. Secondly, they support the local community to protect their forest and nature. Thirdly, they provide employment and job-based training to the Bunong community. Through their programs the impoverished families receive food existence, more than 2,400 local people receive full health care coverage, over 300 schools support the children seeking education.
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Laos Buffalo Dairy
Laos Buffalo Dairy cooperates with people from villages in and around Luang Prabang by renting their buffalo, which provides the families with a regular income stream from an underutilised resource, namely female buffalo; male buffalo being sold for meat. We built a facility for milking their buffalo and keeping them well fed, healthy and safe. The daily running and operation of the dairy allowed us to create 30 full-time positions, which we offered to the farmers who have been helping us on the land since the beginning.
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2019 Showcases

Suan Sampran
As a destination, Sampran Riverside provides visitors with an authentic traditional Thai way of life, as well as emphasising on its eco-cultural and sustainable activities. Visitors can experience authentic Thai hospitality, sample traditional Thai cuisine with organic ingredients from the farm, stay in an antique Thai house, relax in the Patom Organic Spa, enjoy cultural workshops and visit the local farmers who supply the organic produce.
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STREETS International
STREETS International is an innovative social enterprise initiative with the purpose to develop and operate sustainable programs for street kids and disadvantaged youth in SE Asia and throughout the world. STREETS also prepares vulnerable, orphaned and other disadvantaged young people for careers in hospitality.
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Hla Day
Meaning 'beautiful' in Burmese, Hla Day is a welcome addition to Yangon's growing band of social-enterprise shops. It offers quality contemporary and traditional handicrafts sourced from local producers often struggling to overcome disability, exclusion and poverty.
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Soksabike
Soksabike is Battambang's premier bike tour social enterprise offering guests an insight into the traditional livelihoods of the Cambodian countryside.
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Elephant Conservation Center
The Elephant Conservation Center offers experience the power of the majestic elephant. At the Center, a dedicated team of guides, mahouts and elephant vets will take you into the world of Lao elephants. Not only will you enjoy a relaxing stay in the Nam Tien protected area but you will also learn all you want to know about Asia's most iconic creature.
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The Linden Centre
The Linden Centre’s goal is to serve as rural havens for deeper interaction with the Dali community and structured explorations of China’s past. The facility is a nationally protected heritage site that has been restored to its former dynastic elegance, here guests have an avenue for cultural immersion and exchange with each other and the local community.
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2018 Showcases

Inle Heritage
Inle Heritage is a not-for-profit organisation that looks after the cultural and natural heritage of the Inle Region, and helps it grow as a great place to live, work and visit.
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KOTO Restaurant
No ordinary restaurant. It's a place where customers enjoy delicious Vietnamese and European cuisine and where the staff (mostly former street and disadvantaged youth) are so full of energy and enthusiasm that it's contagious.
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Longji Rice Terraces
The Longsheng Rice Terraces, also called the Longji Terraced Fields or Dragon's Backbone Rice Terraces, offer some of the most fantastic scenery in China or indeed the world.
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Local Alike
Local Alike aims to sustain prosperity within the local communities as well as preserve the environment where they reside. They set up a community development fund with their local partners to achieve development goals within the communities by contributing 5% of their net profit to the fund, and with local partners contributing up to 10%.
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Phare Cambodian Circus
Phare, The Cambodian Circus tells uniquely Cambodian tales using modern circus arts and high energy music, touching on themes strong in Cambodian tradition, ethos and spirit. The performances mix theatre, music, dance, acrobatics, juggling, aerial acts, fire and contortion with an explosion of virtuosity and sensitivity.
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Ock Pop Tok
Founded in 2000, Ock Pop Tok was created by two friends – a local weaver and a visiting English photographer. Their vision was to blend their passion for textiles with their desire to be a positive force for change. Ock Pop Tok means East Meets West and is a perfect expression of what visiting one of their shops, or the Living Crafts Center, is like.
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Initiative Partners
Model
  • Public-Private Partnership
Launched
  • 2017
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How you can support it

Nominate small responsible travel businesses that create a significant social impact and provides authentically local experiences, to be considered for the experience Mekeong Collection.

Nominate here

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