Myanmar: a developing country

Tourism Development Plan Myanmar

For the course of stakeholder management our task was to establish a tourism development plan for a (developing) country. I did this together with two class mates and the country we chose to carry out this project for was Myanmar. All in all it was a very interesting project with an even more interesting topic. Below you can find a summary of the tourism development plan we created during this course. I hope you will find it as interesting as we did during our process of this project!

Summary

Myanmar is a country in transition, opening its gates to the world in 2012 after nearly 50 years of military regime. Since that moment, tourism has boomed and both foreign investments and tourist arrivals increased rapidly. Although Myanmar has great potential as a tourism destination for various reasons, it is merely at a development stage in its tourism operations.

High price levels due to lack of capacity, a severely underdeveloped infrastructure, ethnical conflicts between ethnic groups and a new political system hinder Myanmar’s development at the moment. Besides that, deficiency in human resources, poor land use regulations and a lack involvement of communities are three complex societal issues to tackle. Externally, power issues with other countries, like China and the USA, price sensitivity of tourists and strong trends in target markets, such as adventure tourism should be additionally recognized in order to successfully develop Myanmar as a tourist destination.

In its current vision, the Ministry of Hotels and Tourism in Myanmar states its direction towards responsible tourism. The main goal, however, seems to be economic development focusing on volume over value, at cost of natural and cultural heritage, and a clear explanation about stakeholder involvement is absent. As general solutions are not the right way to tackle the complex issues in Myanmar, a new vision with corresponding goals, objectives and strategic actions are developed.

Three goals were defined, addressing three main societal issues identified by means of a content analysis: (1) Improve human resource development, (2) improve land use regulation and (3) increase the community involvement and improve the livelihoods.

The suggested objectives include focusing on education by decreasing the drop-out rates from secondary school, updating educational institutions and orientate on ASEAN training standards for tourism job profiles; inform the rural population about current land use regulations, propose a legal land market, protect areas around hotel zones and create alternative job opportunities for people affected by land alienation; establish CBT in three Centers of Excellence by means of educating people about tourism and including them in decision-making, leading to ‚Meaningful Participation‘ and identify the demand for facility improvement. While each strategy involves different key stakeholders, the governmental authorities maintain a decisive role in every measure. All strategies evolve from SMART objectives which were formulated from the three main goals and form the ground for Myanmar’s revised vision:

“In 2025, Myanmar will be strengthened as a sustainable tourism destination. Our focus lies on managing tourism growth in a balanced way which means offering our visitors quality experiences. With all stakeholders working together, giving Myanmar’s peoples an equal opportunity to use and improve natural and human resources, we intend to turn the diversity of our country into its greatest asset. Herewith, we hope to welcome tourists from all over the world who seek for a journey full of adventures.”

Subsequently, three scenarios are built: In the worst case scenario, Myanmar continues prioritizing economic benefit above natural and cultural conservation and the country fails to handle the emerging growth of tourism and development. The mid case scenario represents the probable future, which means that objectives will be achieved to a certain level, while Myanmar slowly improves its standards, whereas substantial issues remain to be problematic. In the best case scenario, Myanmar meets all objectives by the year of 2025 and tourism will be developed by means of quality and sustainability and Myanmar’s peoples benefit from tourism through job opportunities and improved facilities.

Only if all stakeholders work hand in hand, the goals may be achieved in the future and Myanmar may become a successful and balanced tourist destination.