We show that tourism to a World Heritage Area generates economic opportunities in nearby rural communities, sufficient to reverse migration to the city. To carry out this test, we used an isolated region with a simple economic structure and a newly declared WHA, and analyzed economic constraints, opportunities, and decision processes at the micro scale of individual households, through qualitative analysis of interviews and on-site audits. Tourism triggered a switch from accelerating decline of rural villages, with closing schools and abandoned buildings and farmland, to accelerating recovery and reinvigoration, with new ecolodges and adventure tours employing household members and other local residents. The switch was assisted by low-interest ecotourism loans. It has also generated new economic opportunities for women specifically, and these have created much greater social freedom and self-determination, now also accepted by men.