The remote mountain counties of Lijiang and Shangri-la in northwest Yunnan Province (China) have witnessed a spectacular rise in tourism (a 3000% increase) in the last decade. Whereas in the 1980s most tourists to the area were foreigners, today they are overwhelmingly upper-middle and upper class urban Chinese who have profited from China's booming economy. Most come as "mass tourists", travelling in large, organized groups, and visiting a narrowly defined set of "must see" sights. The region is famous for three kinds of sights: natural wonders (including Jade Dragon Mountain [5600m], Tiger Leaping Gorge, and the White Water Sinter Terraces), historic architecture (including the Old Town sections of Lijiang and Shangri-la cities, and the Songzhanlin monastery, and the cultures and customs of the Naxi, Tibetan, Yi, Pumi, Moso, Lisu and Bai minority nationalities indigenous to the region. In recent years, some locations have suffered extreme environmental degradation, and attempts are now being made to break up the mass tourism monopolies and distribute tourism revenues more evenly through small scale and 'green' tourism initiatives. This paper examines some of the models that are being developed privately, and through government and NGO programs, and evaluates their relative successes and failures.