Damage Control; Despite their bad reputation, tourists can also be one of the world's greatest forces for preservation.(Cover story)

Byline: Alex Kerr (With Kasia Gruszkowska in London and Daniela Perdomo in Paris)

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 Canande 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 ArmendAriz, 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 ArmendAriz. "[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."