The Doi Tung Development Project, one of four flagship projects of the Mae Fah Luang Foundation founded 29 years ago by the Princess Mother (Somdet Ya), has for years been one of the best-known and most popular tourist destinations in northern Thailand.
Visitors can visit lush forests with colourful flowers, picturesque scenery and fresh air.
Hill tribe villagers sell vegetables produced under the Doi Tung Development project.
The ethnic minority communities, with their traditional ways of life, customs and costumes, also offer an additional attraction.
The Doi Tung project runs four businesses covering food, crafts, agriculture and tourism, employing 1,700 people including younger workers who are highly educated in international languages and computer skills. They hail from 29 villages of six ethnic minorities: Akha, Lahu, Thai Lue, Lawa, Shan and Chinese descendants of the KMT 3 RD Army.
The project, which generates 400-500 million baht in revenue a year, has been self-reliant since 2000. It runs two coffee shops in Japan and supplies coffee products to Japanese retailer Muji. In 2011, it started supplying weaving products to Swedish furniture giant Ikea.
Villagers have also gained experience in developing standards from Ikea, which worked with the project for nine years before becoming a partner.
Visitors can enjoy the greenery of Mae Fah Luang gardens.
"Each year, about 1 million tourists visit Doi Tung. The project also hosts over 700 study groups from domestic and international universities, government agencies and other organisations," said Khunying Puangroi Diskul na Ayudhaya, deputy secretary-general of the Mae Fah Luang Foundation. "By sharing its experience with the world, Doi Tung has become a 'living university'."
The Mae Fah Luang Foundation was founded in 1972 by the late Princess Srinagarindra, the Princess Mother of the late King Bhumibol Adulyadej, as the Thai Hill Crafts Foundation under the Royal Patronage of Her Royal Highness.
Following her visits to remote areas of the country, the Princess Mother discovered that ethnic minorities in northern Thailand were disenfranchised -- poor, lacking citizenship and the right to live on the land they farmed. They were often preyed on by opportunists and caught in a downward spiral of sickness, poverty and ignorance.
The Princess Mother was aware of their ability in craftsmanship and wanted to help market their work to supplement their income. Her initiative was successful, with northern handicrafts becoming popular at home and abroad.
The Mae Fah Luang garden is full of colours.
In 1979, the Thai Hill Crafts Foundation initiated an eight-month training course for hill tribe youth at Rai Mae Fah Luang (today known as the Mae Fah Luang Art and Culture Park), instilling the skills and discipline necessary for daily living such as the Thai language, basic mathematics, health education, honesty and independence.
This training then expanded into the Hill Tribe Youth Leadership scheme in collaboration with the United States Agency for International Development.
In 1985, as the Thai Hill Crafts Foundation began to incorporate rural development into its activities, the Princess Mother granted permission for the foundation to be renamed the Mae Fah Luang Foundation under the Royal Patronage of Her Royal Highness the Princess Mother.
It assumed an increasingly important role as a focal point of state and private organisations at both the local and international level.
It was not until 1988 that the Mae Fah Luang Foundation undertook a comprehensive development project in the Doi Tung area to tackle opium cultivation at its root cause -- poverty and lack of opportunity.
This project has become a recognised model for sustainable alternative livelihood development in Thailand, Myanmar, Afghanistan and Indonesia.
According to Khunying Puangroi, visitors can also witness directly the practical applications of the sufficiency economy philosophy of Her Royal Highness the Princess Mother and the late King Bhumibol in tackling social, economic and environmental problems that the people of Doi Tung were facing.
MR Disnadda Diskul, a board member of the foundation who has played a pivotal role in the private non-profit organisation since its establishment, said the Doi Tung Development Project this year will become more instrumental in promoting tourism to generate more revenue and increase the length of overnight tourist stays in Chiang Rai province.
Currently, overnight stays in Chiang Rai average 2.3 days. Doi Tung aims to increase overnight stays in the province to three days over the next three years.
According to MR Disnadda, Doi Tung is set to ramp up tourism promotion activities to add to Chiang Rai's annual tourism festival. The 26-day tourism festival has been organised between December and January since 2014.
The latest festival drew 124,000 visitors, generating 24.5 million baht worth of revenue.
Thanks to the six-month rainy season in northern Thailand, Doi Tung also plans to hold more tourism activities to attract visitors to Doi Tung during the rainy season, targeting mainly children and youths from Asean to join field camps at the project.
"Over the next year three years, we expect tourism will play a more pivotal role to contribute income not only to the project but also the overall province," said MR Disnadda.