I’ve just been over to check out your Offbeat Guides story. Left a comment. Another interesting debate. Will be back to see how it unfolds.

I was a student of postmodernism when I did my first masters degree over a decade ago, so I’m always uncomfortable with the word ‘authentic’ although occasionally I find myself using it because it’s hard to get nuanced in a 30 word guidebook review, for instance.

Anything and everything is ‘authentic’ if it’s local (or national or inherent to the culture and place) – and here’s where I’ll take issue with the mention of price – a $5 meal cooked by an indigenous woman at a market is no more authentic than a $500 meal at a gastronomic restaurant ran by an acclaimed local chef (who could in fact also be indigenous). Each is as ‘real’ and ‘authentic’ as the other – an afternoon at a polo match in Buenos Aires is as authentic as a football match at Boca, and so on. They’re just different experiences as you say.

I will rejoice the day the travel industry starts to appreciate the complexities of cultures, the many facets of societies, people and places and start to insert some more nuanced language in their marketing.

And this is certainly not a criticism of the site! Just general comments. I haven’t looked at it yet, but I will.

Vicky, do also take a look at Offbeat Guides, and my posts on the site, and the debate going over at Cool Travel Guide too. Interested to hear what you think!

Anyway, keep up the good work – whoever you are!

One thing to remember with all this talk over terms like “real” – you guys are all seasoned travelers that already care about the places you visit and the environment and use “in” travel lingo to describe the places you have been. If all tour media was written for you it would just be preaching to the choir! As someone who went into the tour business to help protect the places I love I think getting people who do not think everyday about their environment and community to visit these places is just as important to brining change and protection – especially if it makes them think twice when going to the polls to vote. Terms like “real” are probably not “in” any more, but to new comers they are!

Cheers!

Are you saying it’s a cooperative? Great stuff. For me, that’s a word I’d like to hear more than ‘real’.

Either way, sounds like you’re doing a lot to involve the local community.

Maybe – and this is just a suggestion – but I’d consider adding some of what you just said here to your blurb on TourDust. I didn’t realise that the price was for the whole villa or that there was so much local involvement. You should be shouting this from the hilltops.

Anyway, I have given way more than my two penneth on the subject. I’ll leave you be now.

Best wishes with it. If I return to Thailand, I’ll be sure to look you up.

What we do aim to offer visitors is precisely the opportunity to “go local”, albeit with an element of comfort. What does this mean?

The visitor is not an anonymous room number at the property, but the sole occupant of Gecko Villa, where a local family of villagers look after the guest from arrival to departure. As a single villa, volume is deliberately shunned in favour of a sustainable, small-scale operation. The visitor will meet local families and farmers, where English is generally not spoken, and be able to interact. Local traditions and rituals are reinforced and preserved by the interest of outsiders in celebrating something other than a McExperience.

These very villagers are not employees but owners: funds generated go to provide for their own welfare and that of their extended family, their children’s schooling, access to medical care etc, in a region where employment is extremely limited and where migration to Bangkok or abroad as cheap labour is the norm.

At the same time, the operation helps reforestation in the immediate community, and certain visitors have taken upon themselves to get invoved in direct and much needed assistance to local schools, or in the distribution of blankets etc during the cool season, etc.

When we used the word “real”, we were thinking of Gecko Villa as an alternative to a stay in a tourist enclave such as Phuket or Pattaya, where many tourists remain entrenched by the pool in their foreign-owned and managed hotel after a Western breakfast, venturing out only to buy fake Rolexes or to watch a “cultural show” featuring transvestites or scantilty dressed women, to go go-karting or spend the night at a Western style discotheque. Such an experience may be equally “real”, but it is one that could be had in any number of cities across the world.

In terms of prices, the £125 you mention buys you the entire villa and private pool, your breakfast, lunch and dinner and drinks cooked for you as and when you like, and trips around the local area. All proceeds are distributed locally both to those directly involved and those who supply the property or offer services there, and any profit remains in the local community for development rather than being remitted offshore. As such I think this is a very fair and competitive price. The aim after all is to offer a memorable and beneficial experience to our guests whilst also offering a meaningful alternative income stream to local villagers without forcing them into menial labour at a “real” Thai wage.

Thanks to Gecko Villa I can stay on my land with my wife and children, support our family, and help others in our village. I can take pride in our local traditions – our cuisine (that,yes,includes bugs!), our music, our forest temples and our eco-systems – and all the more so because foreigners enjoy witnessing these. I have independence now, and am not obliged to follow the “hospitality rules” of the international resort where I worked before. Indeed, when hospitality is defined by a formula and measured by external auditors, has that which was genuine not surely been destroyed?

We’d love to welcome you to the property if you ever come to Thailand, so words can dissolve and – hopefully! – the experience prevail.

The use of the word “real” is still going to grate with me. It’s a personal gripe. We all have them. I’m sure I’ve used a fair few travel cliches in my time too that would bug others.

After all, the very idea of “going local” is a loose one too. Could have whole other debate about that. Maybe I’ll start that one off one day soon…

Thanks Ben. I’m really glad you shared your thoughts here. Hope no offense was caused. Good luck with it all.

Vicky