Entertainers or Entrepreneurs

Iban longhouses are a key tourist attraction in Sarawak, a Malaysian state on the island of Borneo. In 1991, over 16,456 tourists went on package tours staying overnight at an Iban longhouse. These adventure tours, marketed as a “River Safari”, mainly visit select Iban longhouses in the Sri Aman Division of Sarawak, a day's journey from the capital of Kuching. This paper reports on recent developments in Iban longhouse tourism at Serubah and Nanga Kesit on the Lemanak River and at Nanga Stamang on the Engkari River. In hosting tourist groups, Iban longhouse residents provide longboat transport and work as dancers, cultural demonstrators, jungle guides or cooks. Recent trends in Sarawak's longhouse tourism include Iban hosts directly managing guesthouse accommodation and actively negotiating other cultural or tourist services. With this greater involvement in tourism, Iban hosts are moving from being culture providers to overall ‘culture managers.’