One approach to assessing impacts of tourism would be to study how rural people live before and during development of tourism in their area, then describe the change from an outside perspective. Very little such research fed into this paper. Instead it draws on what local residents have themselves chosen to do in tourism, chosen not to do, the reasons they have given for their decisions, what they have welcomed and objected to, and their own reflections on the impacts brought about. This means the results are more subjective, but the benefit is that it enables outsiders to identify the livelihood impacts that seem to be of most importance to local people themselves. Two examples help explain this approach4, and set the context for the disaggregated livelihood analysis that follows.