Can Myanmar begin the journey to sustainable and quality tourism?

The Myanmar Centre for Responsible Business today published a sector-wide impact assessment on tourism which highlights some of the positive and negative impacts tourism can have on the country, and the choices to be made.

The second sector-wide impact assessment (SWIA) by the Myanmar Centre for Responsible Business (MCRB), follows on from the SWIA on oil and gas highlights a number of actual and potential impacts of tourism development. The MCRB is co-founded by the Danish Institute for Human Rights.

Some of Myanmar’s flagship sites such as Bagan, Inle and Kyaiktiyo, are already under environmental and social pressure from the effects of tourism, which is affecting the livelihoods of local inhabitants and long-term viability of these places as tourism destinations.

The SWIA makes recommendations to government, businesses, civil society groups, tourists and other stakeholders intended to increase positive impacts and reduce negative impacts.

Myanmar already has in place a number of government policies to encourage responsible tourism. However, a lack of capacity and resources means that implementation of these policies is incomplete. Launching the report, MCRB Director, Vicky Bowman, said:

“At the moment, there’s too much focus on hard infrastructure and in particular, hotel construction. Myanmar needs to rein in the rush to create so-called ’hotel zones’, where land is compulsorily acquired for multiple hotels, often on environmentally sensitive sites. Our field research repeatedly showed that many of the negative impacts we found were associated with hotel zones. What is needed – as the government’s own Master Plan identified – is participatory destination management and a ‘zonal planning’ approach, which is not the same thing as establishing a ‘hotel zone’”.

The assessment also found that local communities were still not sufficiently engaged in decisions on tourism development. “Engagement, consultation and participation of stakeholders should form the basis of tourism development projects from the very start.  This is particularly important in ethnic minority and post-conflict areas where tourism businesses should take the time to understand the conflict and communal dynamics, and how local people would like to see the destination opened to tourists and benefits shared”, said Allan Jørgensen, from the Danish Institute for Human Rights.

The SWIA highlights the significant job creation and poverty alleviation potential of tourism. It also highlights potential threats, drawing on experiences from the region such as Cambodia and Thailand.  For example, children are vulnerable to the impacts of tourism through phenomena such as ‘orphanage tourism’ and some types of ‘voluntourism’.  On this, and other issues, the SWIA identifies relevant international standards and initiatives, and highlights relevant good practices both in Myanmar and other countries.

Download the report: Myanmar-Tourism-Sector-Wide-Assessment

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Responsible travel in Myanmar (Burma)

Last week I spoke at the Tourism Concern Annual Meeting on the subject of Myanmar (Burma) and in particular our responsible travel policy there – which included avoiding hotels owned by members of the regime or those close to it. After accepting the kind invitation, I reflected that this was no longer our policy. On a recent visit to Myanmar, after much discussion with our local partner in country, we decided to drop any attempt at calculating who was benefiting and make decisions based on our normal criteria of quality and sustainability.

Which left me a little short of anything to talk about. So I decided to outline why we had changed the policy and thought it might be good set out why we made this change, so others can better understand our thinking. We looked at the historical perspective, the reality of the situation on the ground, what a policy such as this meant in practice and what our goals were for our holidays within Myanmar.

To put the decision in its political and historical context, I think it’s important to note just how far Myanmar has come since 2009. Not even the wildest optimist in 2009 would have predicted that we’d be where we are now. Aung San Suu kyi, of ‘the Lady’ as she is known in Myanmar, was released from prison in 2010 and 100’s more political dissidents followed. The military regime was brought to an end and a new government introduced under President Thein Sein came in. Some degree of free elections have been introduced as well as a level of freedom of press. Opposition parties, such as the NLD, were permitted to operate relatively normally. Anecdotally, people seem far freer to express political opinions and there is much less of a general climate of fear. Myanmar has seen an explosion in tourist numbers – from 300,000 in 2010, to 2 million in 2013 and a possible 3 million expected in 2015.

It is important to qualify this. The government can best be described as ‘semi-civilian’, with Thein Sein himself and many of the leading figures ex or serving military. Freedoms have been introduced, but are in no way unqualified and many political prisoners remain in jail (see this link here). The constitution is still firmly tilted towards the military junta and Aung San Suu kyi herself cannot officially become president, due to a technical disqualification squarely aimed at her (baring anyone from office with children holding a foreign nationality. Her children are British). The problem of endemic poverty remains and, if anything, the various conflicts between the state and armed ethnic groups and communal violence between Buddhists and Muslims, has got worse (perhaps as a direct result of the increased freedoms).

The point remains though, that Myanmar is an a very different place to where it was in 2009 or even 2011 when tourism really started to open up. Indeed, put in the SE Asian context,(a military regime in Thailand, one party states in Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam) the progress is startling.

Which brings us back to my visit in November last year and our decision to change our policy. Our partner in Myanmar is a man with a very strong mission. He was brought up in Bagan, the child of poor but educated parents. He left the country in 2002 at the height of the repression, seeing no future for his career in tourism, but returned in 2009, having built up a successful business in Cambodia. He has a passion for equitable development and building sustainable relationships which benefit the whole country, rather than just an elite few, foreign companies or large corporations. He believes that Myanmar can be so much better than it is and is completely intolerant of shoddy service and poor finished product. He also thrashed me at chess, but that’s another story.

His argument is one of political expediency. He argues that it’s hardly possible to make moral judgements on who owns which hotel and what form of transport now and how close they are to which part of the regime. The minefield that you are entering there is just too complex. It is also not the case that tourism dollars are ‘propping up the regime’ – as could have been argued (just about) in 2009. There are huge profits to be made from mining, logging and other natural resources and the economy has opened up massively over the past 3 years. There is however, a real and persistent problem with poverty which is shifting very slowly, if at all. Myanmar is by some distance the poorest country in the region and indeed, one of the poorest in the world.   He convinced me, that the economic benefits of tourists visiting Myanmar, spreading their spending as widely as possible and generally engaging with the local population was far more of a net gain than any marginal contribution to unsavoury political characters.

The best way to help the local economy, he argued,  was to get off the beaten track, eat at local restaurants, engage local guides, stay if possible in locally owned hotels, purchase local crafts and encourage sustainable use of cultural and natural capital. Most visitors to Myanmar visit the same 4 destinations, namely: Bagan, Lake Inle, Mandalay and Yangon. His passion is to get visitors to those areas, but to see them from unusual angles and also to get away to out-stations such at Kengtung in Shan State, Mawlamyine (setting of the Gorge Orwell short story, ‘Shooting an Elephant’), the Murgui Archipelago in southern Myanmar, Putao in northern Kachin state and many, many more less visited places. If you want to go to these places and the only option is a hotel associated with a figure close to the previous or current regime, should you not go? Of course not. The people of these regions should be able to benefit economically from tourism and tourism can have a benefit when it provides an economic incentive to preserve natural resources.

Putao itself is an interesting case in point. There is a high end lodge style hotel there called Malikha Lodge, which was originally set up by the foreign team behind ‘Balloons in Bagan’. It was acquired by a man called Tay Za a few years back. Tay Za is head of the Htoo group and would be exactly the person who might be referred to as a regime ‘crony’. He was a close associate of the former president, Than Shwe and has all kind of interests in logging, mining and tourism. His big breaks came before the country opened up. Whilst I know very little about him, when I asked about him to various people in tourism in Myanmar, thet said that he had a decent reputation among his 40,000 or so employees and in fact, in the travel industry, Htoo Group were seen as high payers – perhaps as over generous employers!

Whilst I don’t want to paint him as a paragon of virtue, I offer the example only to stress that the situation is not black and white and that any moral judgements we make from a distance are fraught with danger and hypocrisy.

To my mind we should approach Myanmar from the same approach we should come to any of our destinations. We’d like to provide our guests with life enriching holidays, built on sustainable, lasting relationships and meaningful human exchanges. We want our holidays to take nothing, exploit no one and give back. We want them to be a force for positive development in Myanmar and beyond and we strongly believe that the type of passionate travellers that come on our holidays want to be a part of that. Whilst we believe in ethical travel for its own sake, we also believe that holidays built with sustainability as part of their DNA, make for more insightful, more interactive, more illuminating and ultimately of course, for better holidays.

Here’s to a brighter tomorrow.

Sam Clark, Experience Travel Group

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Animals in tourism – stay safe, stay insured and know when to stay away!

It’s challenging for adventurous tourists and animal lovers not to fall into the many common traps awaiting them when travelling overseas. As well as the issue of ‘photo prop’ animals (animals that vendors in the street, bars or hotels carry around and then charge tourists to have a picture with), there is also the age old problem of animals being used as attractions. As a nation of animal lovers, the temptation to get up close to such exotic animals as gibbons, slow lorises, snakes, bears and even lions and tigers is often too much for us. But, by doing so, tourists can inadvertently be supporting a lifetime of abuse for these animals and encouraging an industry that causes suffering, killing and cruelty for the exact creatures that we profess to love.

One of the most famous animal attractions, and probably the most controversial, is the Tiger Temple in Kanchanaburi, Thailand. The Temple is a popular tourist destination and every day a hundred tourists or more visit, hoping for a chance to get up close and personal with ‘rescued’ tigers. The Tiger Temple website describes itself as a sanctuary, started when locals brought some orphaned cubs to the temple for care and the Abbot took them in and cared for them. The official website claims that there are seventeen tigers at the temple, seven of them orphans and ten bred on site.

But the reality is very different. In 2008, wildlife charity Care for the Wild International released an undercover report called ‘Exploiting the Tiger’. The report used information gathered from a variety of sources between 2005 and 2008 and uncovered disturbing evidence of serious conservation and animal welfare concerns, including illegal tiger trafficking, systematic physical abuse of the tigers held at the temple, and high risk interactions between tigers and tourists. In 2013, promoted by a wave of media concerns about the Tiger Temple, their CEO went back to see if things had changed.

Unfortunately, not much had. The key issues at the time of the visit centred on animal welfare, health and safety and false marketing.

Animal welfare issues included man-handling of the tigers such as hitting or rough handling and constant disregard for the needs of the tigers, inappropriate housing facilities that fall severely short of international standards, over exposure to tourists and over handling, plus much more. Health and safety was a serious concern also – no alarm systems or emergency refuse areas were visible, tourists (including children) could sit within bite reach of the tigers and many even posed for photos with the tigers’ heads on their laps. Also, tourists were encouraged to walk the tigers on a lead – without any training or capability assessments.

In addition to all this, it is clear  that the Temple’s positioning and marketing strategy, based on its identity as a temple come sanctuary with a conservation agenda, is built on a web of lies. None of the tigers at Tiger Temple have ever been released back into the wild, nor can they be under current conditions, and there is no evidence to suggest that Tiger Temple has contributed to conservation in any other way – financially or non-financially. In addition, despite their assertion that there are just 17 tigers at the temple, the actual figure from staff on the day was 114! Nearly all have been bred on site, although the Tiger Temple is not part of any internationally recognised tiger breeding program. In fact, no tiger that has been raised in captivity in this way and interacted with humans in any way can ever be released into the wild. Breeding, therefore, serves no other purpose other than income. The other thing of note is that the Tiger Temple is actually licensed by the Thai Government…..as a zoo!

The investigations also revealed something that may make even the most hard to convince tourist stay away – by going to the Tiger Temple (where you sign a safety disclaimer on entry) you are voiding your travel insurance for the duration of your visit to the Temple. This means that should anything happen you will not be covered and will need to pay for your own emergency treatment – including any repatriation to a hospital in your own country.

So, in summary – if you love tigers, care about animal welfare and want to be a responsible tourist we recommend that you do not visit Tiger Temple. You can find out more and read the full report at www.RIGHT-tourism.org/destinations/asia/thailand where you can also find out a host of animal friendly travel advice by destination.

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Nature and Ecotourism

Latvia is among the few countries left in the world where natural ecosystems, largely untouched by man, still thrive in half of its territory. It is a paradise for tourists seeking to discover a land where nature and tradition have coexisted in harmony from time immemorial.
The country we now call Latvia has long attracted foreigners - at first, invaders of all kinds and later travelers and adventurous. For example, since the 1830s the region surrounding the city of Sigulda has been called the "Switzerland of Vidzeme" by German travelers who compared the sandstone banks of the old Gauja valley of the river Elbe in Saxony.
Unfortunately, in the 20th century Latvia suffered two world wars, and from 1940 to 1991 it was occupied and isolated behind the Iron Curtain of the Soviet Union. Therefore Latvia has been relegated to a "blank spot" on modern European and world tourist map. Today this country largely unknown waiting to be discovered, ready to be revealed as the colorful mosaic that is Latvia.

One Man’s Path of Discovery Fuelled by Ecotourism

As I sit here looking out across the Messenian Bay, I can’t help smiling about how much my life has changed since I was last on this bench two years ago.

Back then I was still working as a lawyer in the European Parliament in Strasbourg. Life was comfortable; perhaps a little too comfortable. I had a 10 minute commute to work by bike, money to travel at the weekends, great colleagues and I was living in the centre of a beautiful old French city. But something wasn’t quite right; I no longer felt passionate about my work.

As I watched the glow of the rising sun creep up the face of Machhapuchhre near Pokhara, Nepal, a part of me already knew that I had to make a career change.

At first I thought it was just a passing phase. I had recently been on an amazing trip to Nepal, where I saw the positive effects ecotourism was having on local communities and the environment, and it was proving difficult to settle back into my daily office routine. But this was more than just a phase. Something inside me changed during those three weeks in the Himalayas and deep down I knew that I should be doing something other than sitting behind a desk working with legal documents. I had to make a change, but I didn’t know how or in what direction.

A couple of months later, sitting on this very bench, I read some great advice on how to find out what you are truly passionate about. The author said that you should think back to your childhood and what you loved doing then – before you faced the pressures of adult life like finding a well-paid job, being in a relationship, paying the rent etc. It made me reminisce about mountaineering trips with my father in the UK – I literally grew up in the back of his rucksack.

I have always loved being outdoors, especially in the mountains – I feel my best when I’m surrounded by them. I pondered how I could find a job involving mountains and it brought me back to my trip to Nepal. It was then that I realised how I had inadvertently stumbled upon something through which I could combine my childhood passion with my newfound interest in sustainability: ecotourism.

But how does a lawyer with no ecotourism training or experience set off down that untrodden path? And, most importantly, what exactly was it that I wanted to do? Ecotourism is a global and diverse field – finding out specifically what kind of project I wanted to work on and where I wanted to be proved to be the greatest challenge of all. I was excited to have finally found something I was passionate about, but I had no idea where to start – it was all rather overwhelming.

So I did what anyone would do: I Googled “ecotourism” and discovered The International Ecotourism Society. Attending their annual Ecotourism and Sustainable Tourism Conference in the USA was an amazing experience, and proved to be the push forward I needed to get started on this new journey of discovery.  As a result of the contacts I made at the conference I was offered two internships – one with Cayuga Sustainable Hospitality in Costa Rica, where I worked in every department of two luxury sustainable hotels – and the other at Maho Bay Camps in the US Virgin Islands, regarded by many as the place where the ecotourism movement began back in the seventies, a part of ecotourism history which tragically closed in May.

Working in ecotourism heaven, Costa Rica, I was able to play an active role in local conservation and community projects. The sustainability departments of the hotels I worked in encouraged guests and staff to get involved in a series of projects that were all about giving back. We worked closely with local schools and villages, educating the younger generation about sustainability, listening intently to what the communities’ needs were and working in harmony to preserve the country’s stunningly beautiful natural heritage. Tree planting, beach cleaning, collecting garbage to prevent dengue fever, supplying equipment to local schools, working with indigenous communities to promote their handicrafts: just a few examples of the inspiring projects implemented by some of the top ecotourism destinations in the world.

Helping a local school in Costa Rica.

Maho Bay Camps was a different story – although just as fascinating. After the luxury of Costa Rica’s resorts, Maho showed me a different side of ecotourism: the “roughing it” side. Living and working in simple tent structures in the forest of St John, I was in constant contact with nature. Bananaquits woke me up in the morning, lizards crawled though my belongings, and sea turtles swam with me in the crystal clear waters. I walked, lived and breathed the surrounding nature – something that I feel is an essential part of any ecotourism experience.

My home at Maho.

Getting out in the field and gaining practical experience is essential for anyone considering such a radical career change, and it proved extremely beneficial in my case. Working at such legendary ecotourism destinations provided me with a clear understanding of how the field functions, and a wealth of experience. It confirmed that my decision to change was right for me. Being involved in such projects made me eager to learn more, to do more and to give more. When I was faced with the decision about what to do next (Should I do more internships? Should I find a job working at an eco-resort? Should I work with a company organising ecotourism holidays?), my new-found experience in the field allowed me to feel confident in my choice: I wanted to create my own project. This dream that had been at the back of my mind for some time started taking shape. It sounded crazy, but I felt compelled to give it a go. So I started thinking, preparing, and planning.  And the first thing I needed to figure out was where I wanted this project to be.

Ecotourism is a concept most commonly associated with exotic, far-away destinations, and I was amazed to see the relatively low number of projects in Europe compared to other places in the world. I had always felt that Southern Europe has a lot to offer in terms of ecotourism, with the added perk (for the European market) of not having to fly 12 hour flights to get there, thereby massively increasing the carbon footprint of the holiday.  Even though there is a growing awareness of sustainable tourism issues in Europe, it seemed that there was still a gap in the market as far as ecotourism destinations are concerned. So I decided to explore countries that fit the criteria I had in mind: amazing natural beauty, rich cultural heritage and a mild climate.

Greece seemed like the perfect fit. I’d recently travelled around its lesser-known mainland and was amazed at what I saw. The current crisis makes such a sustainable project even more necessary for the support of the local economy and communities. An ever-increasing number of people are leaving the cities and turning towards a simpler, less stressful life. The countryside is slowly being rejuvenated,  with many creative young people wanting to work and live away from the city. All we hear in the news is how the crisis is tearing the country apart, but what we rarely hear is how the crisis is making the country more alive, more active, and the people more caring, more creative and more productive. It has always been a place of amazing natural beauty – and now is actually a great time to be there, a great time to start a new project.  Currently trying to find the ideal site for development and build a network of contacts in the now forming Greek ecotourism community, I feel more and more convinced that this is the place to be.

Incredible scenery in mainland Greece.

Trying to get a project off the ground in a flailing economy is and will be a challenge. But the people are warm and welcoming, both within the global and the Greek ecotourism world. I don’t yet know what obstacles I’ll find down that path – I know now, however, how much more energy you have when it comes to fighting for what you believe in.

My past life as a lawyer seems like a distant memory today and I don’t regret a thing. I don’t know about my lawyer self, but I’m pretty sure my 13-year-old self would be proud of me now. That is enough to make me happy. And I can’t help wondering how much further along this path of discovery I will be when I come back to this bench in another two years.

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