THE PAO IN MYANMAR: A VALUE CHAIN ANALYSIS IN A REGION NEW TO TOURISM By SONJA FROMMENWILER A dissertation submitted to the Undergraduate Program of the Ecole hôtelière de Lausanne in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Bachelor of Science in International Hospitality Management Written under the supervision of Peter Varga, Ph.D Lausanne, Switzerland 12th of June, 2014 EHL HONOUR CODE As a student at Ecole hôtelière de Lausanne, I uphold and defend academic integrity, academic rigour and academic liberty as core values of higher learning. I attest, on my word of honour, that work submitted in my name is my own work, and that any ideas or materials used in support of this work which are not originally my own are cited and referenced accordingly. 2 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS My courtesy goes to everyone who has contributed through his or her time and assistance to the realization of this study. At foremost, I would like to thank my close family and friends who accompanied me during the research and writing phase with great moral support and encouragement at all times. Special thanks go to Joern Kristensen, Director of IID Myanmar, who greatly welcomed me to intern for IID and Mike Haynes, Team leader of the RTDMP, who supported me not only during the field research with great insights and advices, but also afterwards. In this sense, also a warm thanks to Dr. Andrea Valentin for her Myanmar expertise and the other RTDMP team members Dr. Anne Jensen and Khaing Oo Swe. I am also very thankful for the great hospitality received by Eve and her family in Yangon, thank you Izzy for making me feel at home. Without the patience of Aung Myin Kyaw, the PaO translator and guide, many of the collected interviews would not have succeeded. The GM of GIC, Khun Maung New, was also of great support for the various information and contacts gained and merits special thanks for his help. Having said this, I would like to thank all the GIC staff and KTGA members who have supported this study by sharing their knowledge and enabling the two trekking tours. However, my most sincere gratitude goes to the numerous PaO villagers and Myanmar people who did not only contribute largely to the achievement of this research, but also enhanced my overall understanding for this impressively beautiful country. To end with, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my supervisor Professor Peter Varga for his patience and guidance through out the whole research process. 3 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY After 50 years of international boycott and isolation, Myanmar is currently undergoing a major transition: since the starting of the reform process in 2010, the country has not only attracted a vast number of foreign investors and companies, but also an increasing number of travellers exploring the country’s cultural and natural treasures. The popular region of Inlay Lake represents a concrete example of how increased tourism might affect the lives of its habitants, especially with regards to ethnic minorities. The PaO people living in the hilly areas surrounding Inlay Lake have so far been excluded from tourism development; however, through the expected increase in visitor arrivals tourism is forecasted to spread out further in the region. Numerous researchers have addressed the phenomena tourism in the past. As such, the world of scholars is divided into a part favoring tourism development for its positive economic benefits to the host country and those saying tourism exposes the local people to the complex system of a globalized world. In addition, the development sector has increasingly started to use the concept of the value chain theory. Initially coming from the business environment, applying the value chain theory in the development world enhances the understanding why developing countries have benefitted less from the global value chain compared to industrialized countries. By adding the stakeholder theory and the triple-bottom line approach, this research paper created a modified tourism value chain tool. Through an ethnographic approach, including qualitative research methods such as semi-structured interviews and participative observations, enough data was collected during the field research in Myanmar to answer the following hypothesis: Applying the modified value chain theory as a tool to identify appropriate tourism products and/or services within the PaO community living on the Eastern hillside of Inlay Lake will lead to a better understanding of the study setting in order to make proposals with potential for further development. The information collected enabled a thorough analysis of the macro and micro environment of the study setting, as well as a comparison of the various stakeholders involved within the value chain of the PaO people. Ultimately, strategies for the development of the tourism products and/or services could be proposed given the possible risks and benefits for the PaO. The thorough analysis has also shown, that the modified tourism value chain analysis is however not enough in order to answer the research question whether tourism can be used as a development tool for the PaO people. Tourism has shown to be a far more complex phenomenon; it takes more than a simple theoretical framework to answer such a question. Further research regarding the viability of tourism as a community-development tool is therefore suggested. 4 TABLE OF CONTENTS 1. Introduction ............................................................................................ 9 1.1. Goals and objectives ............................................................................. 10 2. Myanmar – a country in transition ......................................................... 11 2.1. Location ............................................................................................... 12 2.2. Political environment .............................................................................. 12 2.2.1. A colonial past and a turbulent aftermath ........................................... 12 2.2.2. Recent Development ........................................................................ 14 2.3. Economy ............................................................................................. 14 2.3.1. Tourism Industry ............................................................................. 15 2.4. Social-cultural environment ................................................................... 16 2.4.1. Ethnic minorities ............................................................................. 17 2.5. Inlay Lake (study setting) ..................................................................... 18 2.5.1. Location ......................................................................................... 18 2.5.2. Tourism activities ............................................................................ 19 2.5.3. Ethnic Minorities in the study setting .................................................. 20 3. Tourism as a development tool .............................................................. 22 3.1. Tourism Development ........................................................................... 22 3.1.1. Types of Tourism ............................................................................. 23 3.1.2. Stakeholder Participation .................................................................. 23 3.1.3. Community empowerment through Tourism ........................................ 26 3.2. Tourism Value Chain ............................................................................. 27 3.2.1. A theoretical framework .................................................................... 29 3.2.2. Modified Value Chain ......................................................................... 31 3.3. Conclusion on the Tourism Value Chain theory as a development tool ......... 33 3.4. Research question and hypothesis .......................................................... 34 3.4.1. Defining the Research question .......................................................... 34 4. Research Design .................................................................................... 36 4.1. Qualitative Research ............................................................................. 36 4.1.1. Ethnography ................................................................................... 36 4.1.2. Methods ......................................................................................... 37 4.2. Field trip to study setting ...................................................................... 38 4.2.1. First Part: With the RDTMP project team .............................................. 39 4.2.2. Second Part: Individual research ........................................................ 39 4.2.3. Information acquisition method and participant selection ....................... 40 4.3. Limitations of research methods ............................................................. 41 4.4. Data Analysis Method ........................................................................... 42 5. Data Analysis and Discussion ................................................................. 43 5.1. Modified Value Chain Selection ............................................................... 43 5.1.1. Value chain selection: Macro environment ............................................ 43 5.1.2. Value chain selection: Micro environment ............................................ 48 5.1.3. Sub-value chain selection: Products ..................................................