From Akha crafts to Bangkok five-star hotels and a future rooted in their village

How did Akha women’s crafts from a remote vil­lage in north­ern Thai­l­and find their way to five-star hotels in Bangkok?

This good tour­ism story is sponsored by The “Good Tour­ism” Blog. [You too can spon­sor a good tour­ism story.]

A future made at home

The story begins in Asha Vil­lage, Chi­ang Rai where Nichanan A‑Ngi co-cre­ated Akha Ma-De and Mac­rame by Nicha in 2021. 

Through our pro­gramme, loc­al women hand­craft cot­ton pieces in their own com­munity, earn­ing an income while stay­ing close to their families.

Our work now reaches hotels and trav­el­lers far bey­ond the vil­lage, but craft is only the first step. By com­bin­ing manu­al skills already present in the com­munity with ori­gin­al designs and access to new mar­kets, Akha Ma-De aims to cre­ate last­ing oppor­tun­it­ies for Akha people.

Our long-term vis­ion is simple: to make it pos­sible for more fam­il­ies to build their future without hav­ing to leave their village.

The missing piece

For many women in Akha vil­lages, find­ing reg­u­lar work nearby is dif­fi­cult. Even Chi­ang Rai city offers lim­ited oppor­tun­it­ies, par­tic­u­larly for moth­ers who need to care for their chil­dren. Look­ing for work farther away can mean leav­ing chil­dren with grand­par­ents or rel­at­ives and send­ing money home.

Agri­cul­ture remains an import­ant part of life in the area, but income can be highly uncer­tain. Nichanan, also known as Nicha, remem­bers peri­ods when farm­ing gen­er­ated less than THB 5,000 a month. In some sea­sons, pine­apples could be sold for only around THB 3 per kilo­gram. For fam­il­ies on the land, work­ing hard does not guar­an­tee a stable income.

Akha Ma-De began with the simple obser­va­tion that Akha women already pos­sessed some­thing valu­able: their hands, their patience, and gen­er­a­tions of exper­i­ence with sew­ing, embroid­ery, and detailed hand­made work. What was miss­ing was an oppor­tun­ity to turn those abil­it­ies into a reli­able source of income.

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Traditional skills to contemporary design

Nichanan, 32, grew up in a fam­ily of very lim­ited means, liv­ing in a bam­boo house without run­ning water or electricity. 

Like most Akha girls, Nicha learned sew­ing and embroid­ery from a very young age. She later stud­ied hotel man­age­ment and worked in Bangkok’s lux­ury hos­pit­al­ity industry. 

Nicha main­tained her tra­di­tion­al Akha skills, and, over time, began exper­i­ment­ing with mac­ramé, Chinese knot­ting, and naut­ic­al knots. These tech­niques even­tu­ally became the found­a­tion of Mac­rame by Nicha.

From early on she held a simple ambi­tion: to cre­ate oppor­tun­it­ies that would allow women from her com­munity to earn a liv­ing without hav­ing to choose between work and remain­ing close to their families.

Through Akha Ma-De, she began train­ing women from her home vil­lage to pro­duce new designs with her. The idea was not simply to make han­di­crafts, but to cre­ate pieces that people would genu­inely want to keep, give, and use.

“The skill was already in their hands. We needed to turn it into products people would really want to buy.”

Inspired by Thai culture

Many of Nicha’s designs are inspired by Thai cul­ture. One of the most import­ant is the phuang malai, the tra­di­tion­al Thai flower gar­land offered as a ges­ture of respect, grat­it­ude, and good wishes. Nicha rein­ter­prets it in hand-knot­ted cot­ton, trans­form­ing some­thing tem­por­ary into an object that can be kept for years.

We also cre­ate Thai-inspired Christ­mas orna­ments, bring­ing famil­i­ar cul­tur­al sym­bols, char­ac­ters, and stor­ies into fest­ive decorations.

Behind every piece is also the story of the woman who made it. Some of the women have no land of their own nor any form­al qual­i­fic­a­tion. Oth­ers are older women for whom agri­cul­tur­al work has become too phys­ic­ally demanding.

For many of the artis­ans, this work offers an oppor­tun­ity that would oth­er­wise be dif­fi­cult to find. Akha Ma-De gives their skills a sig­ni­fic­ant place in the loc­al economy.

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Small village to big tourism

Today, cre­ations made in Asha Vil­lage can be found in some of Thailand’s lead­ing hotels. Mac­rame by Nicha has worked with prop­er­ties includ­ing Park Hyatt Bangkok, The Athen­ee Hotel Bangkok, and Aman Nai Lert, as well as oth­er com­pan­ies across travel & tour­ism, such as EXO Travel and Khiri Travel.

Hotels use the pieces as guest amen­it­ies, cor­por­ate gifts, interi­or dec­or­a­tions, or retail products. This cre­ates a dir­ect con­nec­tion between travel & tour­ism and the vil­lage. A trav­el­ler may receive a hand­made piece dur­ing a stay in Bangkok without ini­tially know­ing that it was cre­ated by an Akha woman in Chi­ang Rai. Through the product and its story, that con­nec­tion becomes visible.

Behind each hotel order are hours of work and income cre­ated in the vil­lage. Because the products are designed, made, and dis­trib­uted dir­ectly by Mac­rame by Nicha and Akha Ma-De, com­pan­ies pur­chase dir­ectly from the people pro­du­cing them rather than through a chain of intermediaries. 

For hotels and oth­er busi­nesses, it is a straight­for­ward way to ensure part of their every­day pro­cure­ment con­trib­utes dir­ectly to loc­al livelihoods.

The next step: Akha Ma-De Lodge

Craft is only the begin­ning of what we hope Akha Ma-De can become.

Our next ambi­tion is Akha Ma-De Lodge, a future pro­ject in Mae Yao dis­trict that will cre­ate new employ­ment oppor­tun­it­ies while giv­ing vis­it­ors the chance to dis­cov­er Akha cul­ture dir­ectly with­in the com­munity. The idea nat­ur­ally builds on Nicha’s back­ground in hos­pit­al­ity and on the rela­tion­ships we have developed with the travel & tour­ism industry.

Instead of only bring­ing objects from the vil­lage to trav­el­lers, the lodge will invite trav­el­lers to come closer to the people and cul­ture behind them. Guests will be able to dis­cov­er tra­di­tion­al Akha food, games, music, dance, and every­day life through the people who grew up with these tra­di­tions. It is vital to us that Akha people are not simply rep­res­en­ted by oth­ers, but are enabled to share their own cul­ture themselves.

We also believe that travel & tour­ism can play a role in keep­ing tra­di­tions alive. When people become curi­ous about a cul­ture, value it, and want to under­stand it, young­er gen­er­a­tions have anoth­er reas­on to feel proud of what has been passed down to them. Travel & tour­ism alone can­not pre­serve a cul­ture; but when it cre­ates both pride and sus­tain­able live­li­hoods, it can help give tra­di­tions a strong found­a­tion for the future.

Today, Akha Ma-De sends pieces of Chi­ang Rai into hotels and homes across Thai­l­and. Tomor­row, we hope to cre­ate anoth­er con­nec­tion in the oppos­ite dir­ec­tion: bring­ing people to Mae Yao, intro­du­cing them to the com­munity behind the work, and cre­at­ing more oppor­tun­it­ies for Akha fam­il­ies to build their future without hav­ing to leave home.

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About Macrame by Nicha

Mac­rame by Nicha designs and makes its own hand­made cot­ton crafts in Thai­l­and. Every piece is knot­ted by hand by Akha women in Asha vil­lage, Mae Yao dis­trict, Chi­ang Rai, through our Akha Ma-De social pro­gram, run­ning since 2021.

• Cor­por­ate gifts and premi­um giveaways. Hand­made gifts for cli­ents, staff, hotels and events, cus­tom­ised with engrav­ing or your logo, with no min­im­um order. Quo­ta­tion based. We cus­tom­ise our own designs.
• Thai Christ­mas orna­ments. Over 100 hand­made cot­ton designs, from THB 159, includ­ing Thai motifs you will not find any­where else.
• Innov­at­ive Phuang Malai. Con­tem­por­ary Thai gar­lands in cot­ton, for Mother­’s Day, wed­dings, cere­mon­ies, and VIP and dip­lo­mat­ic gifts.

We also make room dividers, light­ing, cur­tain tie­backs and oth­er cus­tom pieces to order for interi­or designers.

Selec­ted for SACIT Concept 2025 and 2026, EXO Found­a­tion Gold Prize 2025, and UN Women WEPs Awards, First prize 2024 in the SME cat­egory, Mac­rame by Nicha is a mem­ber of Social Enter­prise Thailand.

Talk to us about a pro­ject or a quote: [email protected]

Featured image (top of post)

The Akha Ma-De team (L‑R): Abu Anna, Abu Athu, Abu Jor, Api Mini­um, Abu Jan, Abu Nicha, and Ama Michu. This and the oth­er images used in this post sup­plied by Akha Ma-De.

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