Jodhpur Inc.

The Jodhpur Maharaja family is a great case study of how to maintain a royal family's legacy in a profitable way.

His residence is part hotel/F&B and charges HK$400 minimum cover (even we were willing to pay, we cannot get in since the restuarants were fully booked). His fort, the Mehrangarh Fort, is open to public with excellent display of his family history, treasuries, paintings, etc. The museum is curated - not world standard, but better than any other sites in India I seen so far. There's a dash of multimedia too, with a video showing the young Crown Prince (Eton and Oxford educated, worked at Schroder's in London and Jardine's in HK - well, actually Oxford Brookes not Oxford ;p) talking about how important it is and how much it meant to him to perserve and sustain the family heritage.

While the fort is not architecturally impressive, the experience is different than most other Indian tourist sites. There's a bit of "Disney delivery" - eg, two men putting on a show in the square, showing how to tie and put on a turban. Another costumed man sitting in a corner smoking water pipe, welcoming all to take photos (without asking for money!). There's an well-explained audio guide throughout the site.

Finally, its not just running their own businesses - there are different sections in the fort where there are "SMEs" (third-party small shops) selling everything from incense to textiles - creating (recreating?) some sort of a bazaar and a community within the fort. The Maharaja family even have their own website, http://www.maharajajodhpur.com/. Impressive!