A transparent and accountable selection process is at the heart of the Myanmar Responsible Tourism Awards. The selection process is made up of three key steps:
Stage 1: Shortlisting
Applications are reviewed by the MRTA Management Team, who will shortlisted candidates per category. The shortlisting is based on our General Judging Criteria. Shortlisted applicants will be announced on the 19 October 2018.
Stage 2: Verification
Shortlisted candidates are visited on-site by our assessors, who verify the claims made in their application.
Stage 3: Panel review
Our independent panel of judges meets to review the applications and findings from the on-site assessments to decide on the winner for each category.
Applications for each category are scored against the same criteria; following an initial introduction by the assessors, the judges will discuss and agree scores as a group to ensure that a range of perspectives are taken into consideration. A panel chairperson will be present to oversee the discussion and to ensure that discussions are balanced and un-biased.
Seven travel and tourism experts have been appointed as the MRTA Judges for 2018. Our judging panel brings together a diverse range of experience from the private sector, academia and non-proft organisations.
A short profile of each judge is included below.
All shortlisted candidates will be invited to our prestigious award ceremony, at which the winners will be announced. Tourism businesses, associations, the media and other industry stakeholders will be in attendance. The award ceremony is to be held in Yangon at the beginning of December (further details coming soon).
Meet the Judges
Sabei Aung
Ms. Sabei Aung, MBA, Owner of Nature Dream Travel, proficient 25 years in Myanmar Tourism.
She is teaching as invited lecturer at the National Management Degree College and University of Foreign Languages, Yangon (YUFL) in Yangon.
Furthermore, Sabei Aung is also the writer and leader of “Extend a Helping Hand – NGOs”, an inbound tour operator focusing on DMC, luxury market professional and representative of CHEHOBO.
Hpone Thant (Harry)
Harry has an exceptional overview over the Myanmar Tourism Industry. In 1993, he started a travel agency, “SWIFTWINDS TRAVELS”, and was one of the pioneers of the Myanmar Tourism Industry. Furthermore, he was also one of the founder-members of, and appointed as, Secretary of the Union of Myanmar Travel Association(UMTA) when it was formed by the Ministry of Hotels & Tourism in 2001. He had trained many language guides and tourism professionals as a visiting lecturer at the Tourism Training School and at the DTSM courses of the National Management Degree College. Harry was moreover the Publisher and Chief Editor of the quarterly English language travel magazine, “Enchanting Myanmar” until 2005.
He is still very involved in the development of Myanmar Tourism, among others as a Senior Advisor at Myanmar Tourism Federation (MTF) and Consultant to the Hsithe/Myitkangyi CBT Project joint team of Harrison Institute(U.K) and GeoDiscover Travel(Myanmar) which is implementing model CBT village and Eco-Lodge.
Ei Shwe Zin Aung
Ei Shwe Zin Aung is a senior expert trainer mainly focused on training/education quality for Project MYA/001 at Luxembourg Development Cooperation Agency, Yangon, Myanmar. She received her B.A from University of Foreign Languages, Yangon (YUFL) and her EMBA from SWPS University. During her tenth-year career at travel agencies, tour operators and online booking agent in Cambodia, Thailand and her native country Myanmar, she generally managed the whole travel agent operation, mainly focused on developing eco-tourism products and initiated online booking system to Myanmar tourism industry. After these years, she found the industry needs in human capacity and then she decided to join Luxembourg Development Cooperation Agency for implementing the strategic program 2 (Build Human Resource Capacity and Promote Service Quality) from Myanmar Tourism Master Plan 2013-2020. In addition to training/education quality, Ei Shwe also takes part in travel and tourism and management curriculum development and delivers these training/classes under Project MYA/001.
Ei Shwe Zin Aung will also be one of our assessors to do the inspections at our shortlisted candidates.
Dr. Nu Myat Theingi Oo
Dr. Nu Myat Theingi Oo is not only a social influencer but also Travel & Lifestyle Blogger of “Nu Myat around the world” Facebook page (www.numyataroundtheworld.com) and the author of “Dr. Nu Myat Theingi Oo” Blog (www.numyattheingioo.wordpress.com).
She is also the director of SweSone Media Group that publishes journals and magazines, CEO and Chief Editor of the Chic Magazine and the consultant and chief editor of My Journey Magazine.
She has already published nearly 500 articles of Health, Beauty, Fashion, Life style and travel diaries.
Dr. Nu Myat Theingi Oo has been to 46 countries and written around 200 articles of both domestic and international travels and she is the author of “Kimchi Days in Ginseng Land”, a Korea travelogue book in 2011.
She often share experiences and participate as a special guest to discuss about health, travel, life style issues in conferences, talk shows, TV and radio channels.
Hon. Prof. Dr. Nicole Haeusler
Since more than 20 years Nicole Haeusler works as a Responsible Tourism Consultant, mainly in Southeast Asia and has been focussing her work on Responsible Tourism Management and Training, the implementation of ‘Corporate Social Responsibility – CSR’ and Tourism & Poverty Reduction. She holds a Master Degree in Social Anthropology and a PhD in Responsible Tourism. Additionally, she is a licenced Change Management consultant focussing especially on cultural due diligence. She teaches at a regularly basis Responsible Tourism at University of Sustainable Development in Eberswalde near Berlin (Master Program) and hold an honorary Professorship in ‘Culture and Tourism’.
Since 1996 Nicole travelled on a regular basis to Myanmar, since five years she is based in Myanmar. She was co-editor of Policies on “Community Involvement in Tourism” and “Responsible Tourism” and co-author of “Tourism Masterplan 2013-2020”. She works currently for German Cooperation – GIZ as a senior advisor based in Taunggyi.
Daw May Moe Wah
Over 15 years’ of experience in managing in Multi-national corporations in trade businesses while May is residing in Asia pacific countries. She returned to Myanmar in 2011, by taking responsibilities at non-governmental organizations in organisational development, overseeing bi-lateral partnerships, Governance, campaign initiatives, policy and advocacy planning.
Currently, May is working as Partnerships Director at global organization namely “World Wide Fund for Nature”. She is also the Founder of Australian Alumni Association – Myanmar (AAM) and “The Change” children education foundation.
May is a graduate of Victoria University, Australia where she pursued Bachelor Degree in Banking & Finance and Master in Business Administration. In late 2017, she was awarded as professional practitioner for Change Management & Organisational Development from London School of Management, United Kingdom.
This year itself, May has done the research on Illegal Wildlife Tourism which is shared her perspectives in the conference in Australia. May led the most successful Illegal Wildlife campaign namely “Voices for MoMos” awarded by Guinness World Record and other PR awards. In addition, she delivered a management psychology topic at recent conference in Switzerland. May continued to involve in the knowledge sharing by engaging with public events, training and workshops.
Win Min
Win Min is currently working as a Senior Program Associate at the Myanmar Centre for Responsible Business ( MCRB).Representing MCRB, Win Min has worked closely with relevant stakeholders to improve the legal framework for the tourism sector and to pass concrete tourism law in Myanmar. With reference to the recommendations provided by MCRB’s Tourism Sector Wide Impact Assessment, Min has worked with.
Win Min is also a member of Myanmar Coastal Resource Management Advisory Committee and work in a role developing regulations and guidelines in allowing business like Eco Tourism or Marine Tourism in coastal area.
Min has conducted responsible tourism training for relevant stakeholders and organized multistakeholder tourism conference bringing all the relevant stakeholders of tourism in one table to discuss the future of tourism industry, tourism and community and tourism and environmental conservation.
MRTA 