This thesis reports on research that was conducted from July to September 2014 in the village of Long Lan in Northern Laos into the potential for a community based, community operated, and community controlled ethnic-ecological-tourism enterprise. Long Lan is a White Hmong village located in a mountainous area 40 km northeast of Luang Prabang. They were traditional shifting cultivators growing rice and corn for subsistence and opium poppies for the production of opium as a cash crop. In 1999, however, the Lao government banned both shifting cultivation and opium production, presenting Long Lan with a serious livelihood challenge. In the same year, the Centre for Ecological Studies of Highlands (CHESH), a sister organization of the Vietnamese NGO the Social Policy Ecology Research Institute (SPERI), began working with Long Lan on a programme of Culture Based Sustainable Community Development aimed at developing the customary forms of leadership, governance, and ownership of territory in order for Long Lan inhabitants to maintaining their own spiritual values towards nature and their own customary ways of governing their community and natural resources. As part of the overall village development plan, the objective of the current research was to gain an understanding of potential benefits, pitfalls and challenges involved in operating a community-based ethnic tourism enterprise in Long Lan village, and to gather information useful in aiding in the possible development of an endogenous, community-based tourism venture owned and operated by the people of Long Lan. Thirty-two semi-structured interviews were conducted with Long Lan residents to ascertain their knowledge and understanding of tourism activities and their possible impact. These views were analysed and fed back to the village in research feedback meetings together with recommendations by the research team. The research is placed within the context of a critical review of ethnic tourism Thailand and Laos.