This document has been prepared by Craig Burkinshaw, Managing Director of Audley, to explain our position on travel and tourism to Burma.
What is the premise on which Audley justifies arranging travel to Burma?
In basic terms my approach is to allow clients to make their own informed decisions. We can provide details of organisations (see below) both for and against travel so people can study the issue for themselves and make their own decision whether or not to travel. I am concerned that it is somewhat patronising and arrogant of me to tell my clients (intelligent, well travelled, world-aware people) where they can and cannot go based on my point of view.
Audley clients who do travel are invariably aware of the issues and often find it a difficult decision to make. They tend to take a close interest in the situation when they are in Burma and return (as I did) more informed and interested in the problems that the country faces than before. I read with interest their comments when they return and I can honestly say that not one client in the last eleven years (since we began) has said that they regret having made the trip and feel that they have done the wrong thing.
I in no way support the regime in Burma and sympathise with the broad objectives of the Burma Campaign in the UK. However, I do find that people’s views tend to change (not necessarily to the opposite point of view) when they read around the subject more widely. People generally tend to say that the situation is much more complicated than they ever realised.
On a personal basis, I am strongly of the view that visits to the country by well informed people who travel to the country with an interest, not only in seeing the country, but also in learning about its massive social and political problems is overall a positive thing. I spent one month travelling to all corners of the country in the 1995 and the large number of people I spoke to were invariably pleased to see visitors and often thanked you for coming to see the country and for taking a serious interest in the political situation including learning about the life under the oppressive regime. Over the years members of our Southeast Asia team have travelled to the country dozens of times and their experiences have in general been very similar to what I experienced during my time there. As I said above, the feedback I have received from clients over the years indicates that they have also had the same experience. I accordingly see no benefit whatsoever in isolating the Burmese people from contact with the outside world.
In reality, do Audley operate to Burma simply in the pursuit of profit?
We certainly cannot prove that this is not the case, but we can give you some information which we believe essentially proves we do not make a profit from operating to Burma. We operate to most parts of the world apart from the USA and Europe. Less than 1% of our clients visit Burma as a part of their itinerary. We have received quite a substantial number of letters from people stating that they will not travel with us as long as we continue to arrange travel to Burma. We think there is little doubt that the reduction in passenger numbers, if we stopped operating to Burma, would be more than made up by the increase in passengers from people prepared to travel with us again as a result (i.e. more than a 1% increase). Therefore, we are confident that our worldwide bookings/revenues would increase. This begs the obvious question - why do we therefore continue? The answer is simply that Audley is not operated purely for profit, we are also driven by our aim to be one of the UK’s best tour operators and one of the UK’s best places to work. We have won awards for both as well as for our “responsible tourism” policies.
Is it possible to travel to Burma without much of the money going to the government?
Much of the infrastructure is either government owned or is owned by companies or individuals linked to the regime, though most of the international class hotels are wholly or majority-owned by overseas interests. By doing things such as eating in smaller restaurants, employing local drivers and guides as well as buying souvenirs and other things from small shops and street vendors you can ensure that money goes direct to the local people and not to the government. But unless you stay in very small, simple guest houses and travel by local buses you will be using transport and hotels during your stay that the government will derive some revenue from.
Tourism is different from industries such as logging, oil, gas, gems and fishing because it is mainly privately owned so is not as directly linked to the government but as stated above many of these private owners will have government links.
Where can you find out more about the issues?
The internet is the best place: www.irrawaddy.org is a website containing vast amounts of information about Burma past and present. It is an excellent place to find out what the main issues are and a great source of links, interviews and reports on the debate that surrounds them.
You can find transcripts of interviews with a whole range of people including Aung San Suu Kyi. The site has links to other websites from all over the world that cover Burma issues. One of the interviews I have been most influenced by is with economist Jeffery Sachs who argues in favour of tourism. It is important to note that Mr Sachs is not a ‘random’ economist that I have picked out simply because his views agree with mine. He is one of the most senior advisors to the UN Secretary-General. I find the points he makes to be based on solid facts, well reasoned, and realistic. I think the fact that he is realistic about the chances of western sanctions working given Burma’s close relations with countries like China particularly interesting. I believe that this is a debate where many people who argue in favour of sanctions do not back up their position with supporting information to demonstrate the extent to which they will effect the regime and consequently the probability of them leading to or accelerating progress towards democracy.
The interview with Yvette Mahon and Joe Cummings is also interesting in that it is specifically about tourism – Mahon arguing against and Cummings arguing in favour.
Specifically on Travel to Burma issues, www.voicesforburma.org/sitemap is well worth browsing in detail.
Other useful links include:
Does tourism revenue make a significant difference to the survival and power of the regime in Burma?
I think this is a very important issue that is often skirted over when the subject of tourism is discussed. Tourism is certainly a source of foreign currency for the regime. But personally, I think it is essential to look at the bigger picture and ask if there is any realistic possibility that the regime would struggle if the revenue from tourism was reduced or stopped altogether.
First, some hard facts. As a very rough guide, Burma earned some US$ 165 million gross (or what Thailand earned in only four days) during 2006 from some 175,000 international visitors arriving at the main international arrival gates of Yangon (Rangoon) Mandalay, Bagan and Muse/Ruili (on the Chinese border). Compare this with Thai earnings of US$ 13.4 billion in 2006 from some 13,600,000 visitors. After meeting operating costs, servicing loans, paying land rentals and taxation to the State, the net profit available for distribution is likely to be less than US$ 30 million, most of which goes to private and international owners. The State is known to be concerned that both land rentals and taxation due are in some cases behind schedule. In short, at its present level, tourism is not a cash cow for the State whose main sources of hard currency income nowadays are natural gas exports, timber, fish, agricultural products, jade and precious stones, likely to reach some US$ 5.5 billion in 2006. On this evidence, tourism would need to increase by a factor of 5, if not 10, in order to become a significant hard currency earner.
I believe this issue also needs to be looked at from a much broader perspective, namely Burma’s general situation in terms of its political and economic relations with other countries and trading blocks such as China, Japan, India, the USA, the EU and ASEAN.
The first point to me is critical and it would be easily possible to write endlessly on this subject alone. In order to be reasonably brief, I would point out several key factors that you may wish to further investigate:
- Burma sits between those dynamic and rapidly developing economies of China and India, both of whom consider their current and future strategic relationship with Burma to be very important. China in particular has been very supportive of the regime and is working intensively to strengthen economic relations. Burma’s vast natural resources and the fact that Burma offers a route from Southern China to seaports in the Indian Ocean for imports and exports are key. The Chinese government has reportedly leased an island, in the northern Andaman islands, from the Burmese and built a naval base here to protect its “interests”. The Chinese Government nonetheless publicly acknowledged in discussion in the UN Security Council on 15 September 2006 and 12 January 2007 that Burma has particular problems, some of them serious, and - to quote from the latter record - “sincerely hopes and expects that the Myanmar Government will……..listen to the call of its own people, learn from the good practices of others, and speed up the process of dialogue and reform.” Against this realistic background, I think it is fair to say that China’s policy on Burma is one of the major factors that will influence the future survival of the Burmese regime. Without Chinese support the campaign to get rid of the regime is much less likely to succeed.
Further, in November 2006, China hosted a summit of African nations to build stronger ties with them. 48 out of 53 nations attended, 40 out of the 48 are being represented by the nations leader. China has made it very clear that it has no intention of interfering in the internal affairs of these countries. In particular, it is actively working with the regime in Sudan (despite the current Darfur crisis) and the regime in Zimbabwe (despite the current humanitarian crisis). This strongly supports the view that it will continue to develop strong economic relations with Burma without any attempt to promote change or democracy. China’s own lack of democracy does of course make this even more unlikely.
- The Southeast Asian economic ‘block’ of nations, ASEAN (comprising Singapore, Thailand, Burma, Malaysia, Indonesia, Brunei, Philippines, Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia) is also key”. Frustrated that Burma remained recalcitrant, in 2006 the nine ASEAN countries were inclined to let Burma face the music at the UN Security Council, but they have subsequently decided that the Council is not the best place to tackle Burma’s problems and supported the Chinese and Russian vetoes on 12 January 2007 of a US-UK sponsored draft Resolution. ASEAN acknowledged at a Summit Meeting at Cebu in the Philippines shortly after the Council vote that it was indeed up to them to do something about Burma in order “to preserve ASEAN’s credibility as an effective regional organisation”. My point here is that, like it or not, the bulk of the trade and political ‘support’ for the regime comes from Burma’s Asian neighbours and, without the strong support of these countries, change is much less likely. I believe that commentators in Europe often overlook the fact that the EU has very limited political and economic influence over Burma and to talk as if it does is simply naïve and unrealistic. Any policy that aims to change Burma must take full account of this reality.
What is Audley’s wider record on Responsible Tourism?
We are very committed to responsible tourism in general and we are working closely with several organisations in the UK and around the world on this. We have been awarded the highest rating by the Association of Independent Tour Operators (AITO, which is independently audited) for our current approach to responsible tourism and we are totally committed to attaining the highest possible standards in this area. Only 12% of AITO members have achieved this rating. We are proud of the fact that we offer information on charities, NGOs and community projects to clients travelling with us enabling them to gain a deeper understanding of the countries that they visit. In many cases we can also arrange for clients to visit these projects and schools as part of their itinerary. 4 out of 5 clients who book with Audley have either travelled with us before or have been recommended to us by people who have. We believe that our positive approach to responsible tourism is one of the main reasons why so many of our clients travel with us again and again.
Responsible tourism is very important to people who work at Audley. Most of us have travelled extensively and have seen the extremes of what tourism delivers around the world. While the Southeast Asia team clearly have the direct involvement with the Burma issue, people in the other teams also take an active interest in Audley’s approach to issues like Burma and other responsible tourism issues. For more information see our policy on responsible travel.
For the past 2 years we have been voted in the Sunday Times’ “top 50 companies to work for” (13th and 33rd; voting is confidential and the results are thoroughly checked and backed up by one-to-one face to face interviews to verify that the results are genuine). In October 2006 we won the prestigious Guardian/Observer award for “Best UK Tour Operator”. This is acknowledged in the industry to be the most significant award of its type because it is publicly voted and known to be completely fair – many similar awards strangely tend to go to companies who happen to spend a large amount on advertising with the particular publication concerned. We have also been voted in The Wanderlust top 10 UK Tour Operators for the last 3 years.
I believe that our “Responsible Tourism”, “Best Tour Operator” and “Best Company to Work For” awards conclusively demonstrate our total commitment to striving for excellence not only in the quality of travel arrangements and service we offer to our clients but also in the pride we take in creating an organisation based on solid ethics that our people find both rewarding and enjoyable to work in. If you combine two factors:
- As an organisation that takes the views of its staff very seriously. It would not really be feasible to operate Burma without the policy having the backing of the staff (generally because they agree with the reasons outlined in this document).
- Only 1% of the trips that we arrange visit Burma so it is commercially insignificant to us. (Note: The figure is about 1% regardless of whether you look at it in terms of revenue or passenger numbers).
This leaves only one realistic, rationale reason for continuing: a genuine belief that visits to the country by well-informed, concerned individuals who take a real interest not only in the place but also its socio-economic and political situation is a positive thing. We know from speaking to returning travellers and our own experiences that the impact the visit has on them tends to create a deeper interest in Burma’s problems and therefore a more active longer term interest in what happens. For all those people who, like us, would like to see the end of the regime, that can only be a good thing.
Further questions?
If you would like to discuss the issues in more detail face to face I would be very interested to hear your views and discuss the issues. Please call or email me (direct line is 01993 838 018, email: craig.burkinshaw@audleytravel.com) to arrange a suitable date and time.
The following paper submitted to the House of Lords Select Committee on Economic Affairs may also be of interest. While it is in general pro-tourism under certain conditions it highlights the complexity of the situation and the issues involved. You may wish to conduct your own further research into the wide range of issues raised in it.
In summary, while I fully appreciate that you may disagree with the points I have made here I do at least hope that I have demonstrated that I have thought about the issues carefully and our approach is not simply motivated by profit and/or a lack of concern about the serious human rights issues involved.
Craig Burkinshaw
Managing Director
Audley Travel
01993 838 018
craig.burkinshaw@audleytravel.com
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