I do not deny there are side effects in ethnic tourist industry. But overall minority people who live in tourist areas and participate in tourist industry are way better off than the ones living in isolated regions with limited contact with Han Chinese. I assume your travel in Yunnan province proves my point. Ask a Tibetan tour guide in Shangrila Songzanlin Monastery or a Naxi travel agent in Lijiang Old Town whether they want to return to their village to raise yaks.

There’s a fair body of literature on the process by which minority peoples in (post) colonial situations are exoticized/essentialized, including through so-called “cultural” tourism and media representations. There’s also the process some scholars, reworking Said, have labeled “internal Orientalism.” I’d suggest checking some of this research out.