Tourism in crisis: How local staff supported their communities in Myanmar

In this “Good Tour­ism” Insight, Nia Klatte of Khiri Reach, the char­it­able arm of “GT” Part­ner Khiri Travel, shares how her organ­isa­tion’s Myan­mar-based teams stepped up to sup­port host com­munit­ies dur­ing the COV­ID-related travel & tour­ism closures.

This pan­dem­ic has shown us again how big our respons­ib­il­ity is for the people with whom we work; not only our full-time staff, but also our freel­ance guides and drivers, as well as the loc­ally-owned busi­nesses, NGOs, and com­munit­ies we vis­it regularly. 

Without being able to send our cli­ents to a des­tin­a­tion and without being able to provide income for our part­ners, they are the ones who struggle the most dur­ing a tour­ism down­turn. Our products and ser­vices really depend on loc­al com­munit­ies and the loc­al guides who make our tours what they are. It’s very dif­fi­cult for us to see them suf­fer right now. Unfor­tu­nately, the sup­port sys­tems from loc­al gov­ern­ments are very lim­ited in all of our des­tin­a­tions, espe­cially for inform­al and freel­ance workers. 

When Myan­mar’s bor­ders were shut and we had no more cli­ents on the ground, our teams there came togeth­er to dis­cuss the situ­ation. We brain­stormed ideas that would keep our staff busy, give them some­thing to wake up to every morn­ing and to be proud of, and that would help us sup­port all the Burmese with whom we have good rela­tion­ships. We chose two ideas and made them pri­or­ity projects.

The first pro­ject is called Honey Bee Arts & Crafts. In many of the Burmese com­munit­ies we vis­it with our cli­ents, we find extremely tal­en­ted artis­ans. They pro­duce beau­ti­ful crafts and souven­irs that show­case the loc­al cul­ture and use tra­di­tion­al mater­i­als, but without any tour­ists vis­it­ing they don’t have any source of income. So, instead of bring­ing the tour­ists to the products, our idea was to bring the products to the tour­ists. Our team put togeth­er an online plat­form, which has provided an oppor­tun­ity for our loc­al part­ners to sell their products world­wide. (All their products are made with sus­tain­able and tra­di­tion­al mater­i­als, such as bam­boo, papi­er-mâché, recycled plastic, and coconuts.)

The second pro­ject is called Ku Mel, which means “We will help”. When brain­storm­ing ideas, our staff in Myan­mar recog­nised the import­ance of volun­teer­ing in the coun­try. Even in good times, many loc­al pro­jects and NGOs can­’t afford to hire full-time staff or pay for the expert­ise they need. At the same time, many young Burmese are look­ing to gain work exper­i­ence and devel­op their skills, espe­cially in areas where edu­ca­tion­al pro­grams might be lacking. 

KuMel is a free plat­form we developed to con­nect organ­isa­tions and volun­teers. The Khiri team works with many loc­al NGOs and com­munit­ies, so col­lect­ively we have a vast net­work of part­ners and a good under­stand­ing of their needs. Our team used that know­ledge to build a data­base of pro­jects, which is shared with any­one enthu­si­ast­ic about help­ing them out. There’s already a huge selec­tion of pro­jects avail­able in many fields includ­ing waste man­age­ment, tree plant­ing, anim­al shel­ters, a mobile soup kit­chen, and pro­jects sup­port­ing the eld­erly and people with disabilities.

Both Honey Bee and Ku Mel have found a way to cre­ate addi­tion­al income and deliv­er much-needed sup­port to Burmese com­munit­ies in need. Our loc­al teams have worked extremely hard on the exe­cu­tion of these pro­jects. In addi­tion to help­ing their com­munit­ies, many team mem­bers have learned a lot and developed their own skills, such as how to set up a web­site or start a fun­drais­ing cam­paign. They have taken on a sense of own­er­ship in the pro­jects and are extremely proud of what they have achieved and how they have been able to sup­port their home country.

What do you think? Do you have a sim­il­ar exper­i­ence sup­port­ing com­munit­ies in times of tour­ism in crisis? Share a short story about it in the com­ments below. Or write a deep­er “GT” Insight. The “Good Tour­ism” Blog wel­comes diversity of opin­ion about our travel & tour­ism industry because travel & tour­ism is everyone’s business.

Fea­tured image (top of post): Khiri Travel’s Ku Mel pro­ject team mem­bers join togeth­er for a com­mon cause. Image sup­plied by author.

About the author

Based in Ho Chi Minh City, Viet­nam, Nia Klatte is both region­al sus­tain­ab­il­ity coordin­at­or for “GT” Part­ner Khiri Travel and exec­ut­ive dir­ect­or of Khiri Reach, its char­it­able arm.

A sus­tain­able and respons­ible tour­ism spe­cial­ist with a Master’s in Tour­ism & Social Anthro­po­logy from the Uni­ver­sity of Brighton, Nia has worked in South­east Asia since 2013, includ­ing as sus­tain­ab­il­ity man­ager in Thai­l­and, Laos, and Viet­nam for EXO, before tak­ing on the role as region­al sus­tain­ab­il­ity coordin­at­or at Khiri Travel in 2019. With­in a year she had helped Khiri become the first DMC to be Trav­elife-cer­ti­fied in all its offices. 

Nia reck­ons sus­tain­ab­il­ity is no longer a lux­ury, it’s a neces­sity, and says she is com­mit­ted to the triple-bot­tom-line: People, Plan­et, and Profit. Besides her engage­ment in vari­ous sus­tain­ab­il­ity work­ing groups across South­east Asia, Nia is one of the found­ing mem­bers of IMPACT Viet­nam, a net­work of respons­ible tour oper­at­ors pro­mot­ing sus­tain­able tour­ism development.