Travel: Resorts weave Ladakh's local life and art into tourism
Ladakh's hotels are moving beyond overtourism by investing in local life, protecting the fragile ecosystem, and prioritising sustainable, community-centric travel
If Stanzin Tsephel takes you to Leh market, you may not make it to the shops. The short walk is slowed by enthusiastic greetings of “Julley" and animated exchanges between Tsephel and locals passing by. Everyone seems to know each other in Leh. A similar experience follows in Tsephel’s native village of Hunder where he owns the boutique luxury property Stonehedge. He confirms that this easy familiarity is common in Ladakh. “Traditionally, because of the remote terrain and long and extreme winters, social interaction was important. You needed to share and cooperate to survive. Things have changed now, but there is still a strong sense of connection and community," says Tsephel.
This community-centric mindset also permeates Tsephel’s work, using his hotels in Leh and Hunder to support the local population. In fact, several hospitality providers in Ladakh look beyond just their properties to empower communities, fund conservation, revive endangered arts and crafts, and more. While over-tourism in Ladakh often makes the headlines, these stakeholders believe that a mindful and balanced approach is required. Often led by conservationists and community-insiders with a deeper perspective of tourism, these boutique properties have initiatives to support local artisans, reduce human-animal conflict, revive traditional skills, fund local projects, and train locals with new skills to diversify income.
In Hunder, on the bank of the Shyok River, sweeping sand dunes, monasteries and views of the Ladakh, Karakoram and Saltoro ranges, set the scene for Stonehedge, Tsephel’s 20-room eco-lodge built in vernacular style with local mud, stone, and wood. The 5-acre property that opened in 2018 employs several locals, engages local artists for cultural performances and, in 2022, set up an Artisans’ Bazaar to support community artisans.
In the evenings, during the April-October tourist season, the outdoor bazaar glows with spherical cane lamps hanging from the trees and live music. Of the 33 simple mud, brick and timber shops, 23 are currently operational selling food and drink, handmade woollens, souvenirs, organic skincare and Tibetan medicine. The space is free of cost and local small business owners make approximately ₹20,000 a day. “Their profit margins are around 20%, so they make about ₹120,000 a month in season time," says Tsephel, 46. He brings artisans from Leh and Hunder and plans to expand by inviting some from Kargil. “Ladakh has a long tradition of copper, metal, and stone work, pottery, weaving, which we want to revive," says Tsephel.
Further north, in the remote Balti village of Turtuk near the India-Pakistan Line of Control, Virsa Baltistan, a 7.5-acre luxury boutique property that opened in 2024, similarly showcases local craftsmanship. Virsa’s intricately hand-carved wooden windows and balconies accent the grey stone structure of the 12-room property, a seven-year project involving over 200 local stone masons, woodcarvers and blacksmiths, using more than 100 local handmade or natural materials.
Rashidullah Khan, 34, the founder and Turtuk native, wanted to replicate a centuries-old Balti house design with river-bed mud, timber and hand-carved wood. “We needed people who understood the techniques like mud plastering, stone work and wood carving. It really is a revival project of these traditional skills," says Khan. “The village is a small place. We are like a big family. The whole idea of Virsa is not just a hotel, but to promote the region and Balti culture."
Guest experiences at Virsa are designed to provide direct income for the community. These include workshops with stone masons and brass smiths, and dining with local families. With a dearth of skilled hospitality professionals in this far-flung location, Khan trained locals, including a former munshi as a supervisor, and an ex-motor mechanic as a barista. A seven-course farm-to-table tasting menu of Balti specialties is cooked on an open fire in the fruit orchard at the property. Guests can watch the meal being prepared by a few of Turtuk’s women, each of them earning between ₹12,000-15,000 per month.
Khan, a self-taught chef, has also opened his kitchen for anyone who wants to learn baking and sushi and pasta making. “Turtuk has several homestays and camping accommodations, but running those are very different from running a hotel. I can see curiosity and interest among the locals in learning more about the hospitality business."
By next year, Khan plans to use a portion of the hotel’s annual revenue to support community health and education initiatives.
Some hospitality ventures focus on resolving community challenges. Adjoining eastern Ladakh’s Hemis National Park, about 50km south-east of Leh, is luxury wilderness retreat Lungmār Remote Camp in Sumdoh Valley, a base for snow leopard expeditions, owned by conservationists and snow leopard trackers Abdul Rashid and Dorjay Stanzin. Their aim is to offer visitors a chance to see elusive snow leopards, and involve the local community in conservation and tourism.
“Traditionally, this has been a pastoralist and agrarian society, heavily reliant on shepherding and growing their own food," says Rashid, 49, who grew up in Nubra Valley. Livestock killings by snow leopards have long caused human-animal conflict, prompting a Lungmār initiative to create predator-proof corrals through a minimum donation of $350 from each guest stay. Each enclosure protects up to 500 sheep and goats with every shepherd neighbour within the camp’s vicinity now having one built by the Lungmār team. “Most of our colleagues come from pastoral families. They understand livestock, grazing rotations, and the realities of winter. That empathy allows us to guide with respect for herders and for predators."
Both Rashid and Stanzin, who is from a village within the national park, have had distinct yet overlapping journeys—Rashid transitioning from mountaineering expeditions to snow leopard tours, while Stanzin was one of the founding members of the Snow Leopard Conservancy Trust (India) and worked with them for several years.
Started in 2021, the 12-room property has six suites and six insulated Khurkhang tents built with local materials and techniques. “One unique aspect of building the camp in a local style was that the majority of our team, all of whom are from surrounding villages, could take part in construction," says Rashid. There are challenges to having stable sources of income here and younger generations move to cities for opportunities, leaving behind an ageing population that continues a rural lifestyle. “While this is a good thing in terms of education, we also need to provide sources of income locally to keep our educated youth in Ladakh."
Winter tourism, specifically the kind Lungmār specialises in, combines job opportunities that require agrarian skills to manage the property and systems, and the skills younger people might have, such as speaking English and interacting with tourists. Although the small property directly employs a limited number of people, the need for secondary and tertiary suppliers broadens the impact.
About 200km north-west from Hemis, in Nubra Valley’s Kyagar village, is Lchang Nang Retreat, a 17-room luxury eco-conscious resort, where guest experiences are designed to give back to the community. “Whether mindfulness sessions with monks, stargazing on the sand dunes, or the Karakoram dining experience cooked by local women at a 400-year-old house, a portion of the proceeds goes directly to the community," says Kyagar native and owner Rigzin Wangtak Kalon, 42. The dining experience has helped the group of 50-60 women, who traditionally did not work, to earn ₹10-12 lakh each during the tourist season. Kalon is also constructing greenhouses on the resort’s 25-acre property to be given free to local farmers to manage. The produce of green leafy veggies, cucumber, herbs, tomatoes, etc. will be bought by the hotel. “We gave out two greenhouses last winter and will be making more to include more farmers."
Community-based tourism is the focus of Delhi-based Kaafila Luxury Camps, a wildlife lodge and camp marketing and management company. Their work with Snow Leopard Lodge (SLL) in Ulley village in central Ladakh’s Sham region furthers the approach of training locals in conservation and tourism skills. The 10-room lodge started in 2010 as a homestay owned by local Tsewang Norbu, who trained as a snow leopard tracker under a programme by the Snow Leopard Conservancy (SLC), an NGO engaging local communities in conservation. This initiative helps the locals to earn income by creating homestays and training as spotters.
“Ulley is a tiny village with a very small population. The SLL employs some of the villagers as lodge staff and taxi drivers. Others work as spotters, which is especially remunerative," says Hashim Tyabji, director of Kaafila Luxury Camps, the group which initially managed the lodge and now markets it.
Optional guest donations, typically $200 per person, are directed to the SLC for research, education, and predator-proof livestock pens; and occasionally towards community projects, such as building an ice hockey rink in a neighbouring village. “The most satisfactory part of the journey has been in pioneering a successful conservation tourism model in some of the toughest conditions in the world and then handing it to young and enterprising Ladakhis to continue the journey," says Tyabji.
Beyond Tourism
There are plans to expand these community initiatives. Khan intends to start a design label, collaborating with local weavers, woodcarvers and other artisans on attire and decorative pieces inspired by Balti design. Tsephel has worked with the Ladakh government on waste management solutions in Leh, and plans to replicate these in Hunder next year.
There are efforts to extend support beyond their immediate communities. Amid over-tourism concerns in Ladakh—pollution, water shortages and environmental damage—these stakeholders advocate diversifying tourism beyond peak summer months and hot spots to relieve the load on these destinations. Tyabji observes excess tourism as a localised problem in Leh and parts of Nubra. Part of the issue is the time and investment needed to develop a new area for tourism. “Which is why many simply add inventory in tried-and-tested places, adding to overcrowding," he says. “In our case, we are now supporting a local Mangyu (a village south of the Indus River in Sham Valley) homeowner in building a dedicated wildlife lodge which incorporates sustainable building technology like passive solar construction that will save considerable energy in heating."
Kalon is looking to restore heritage structures in remote areas, like the Siachen belt. “These are discarded, rustic but nice structures. We are trying to diversify tourist spread, working with the locals to run these as heritage properties," he says. Keeping community at the centre of these efforts is crucial to tourism in Ladakh, he adds, as locals understand the land, challenges, fragile ecosystems, and emphasise empathy in business.
The Lungmār team collaborates with other snow leopard communities within Ladakh and in countries like Kyrgyzstan and Mongolia, training local rangers in tracking and adapting Lungmār Camp’s model of community-based conservation and ecotourism. “We aren’t just a property doing conservation in the area," says Rashid. “How do we make our learnings benefit other communities? We want to scale this model in a way that can be replicated across many landscapes so that many more communities and wildlife populations can benefit."
Reem Khokhar is an independent journalist based in Delhi.
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