Ceritalah | For Myanmar’s young women, tourism provides a way out of poverty
- Working women are frowned upon in Myanmar society but for housekeeping supervisor Ae Ae Phyo Aung who earns up to US$400 a month, tourism is a way to a more prosperous future
- The 39-year-old earns more than her husband and her salary goes towards savings and luxury items
“The plan was always to keep moving up,” says 39-year-old Ae Ae Phyo Aung, her English clear and precise. “That’s why I went to work in Doha and Dubai.”
After two three-year stints in the Middle East, Ma Ae (“Ma” means “Ms” in Burmese) now works as a housekeeping supervisor in a five-star hotel in Yangon. In 2000 when she was 20 years old, she started working in marketing for the Yellow Pages. She had just finished high school and needed to help her father support her two younger brothers. Two low-wage jobs later, she joined the hospitality industry, slogging away at a budget hotel while pursuing distance education.
Then in 2004 she moved to the Sedona Hotel, her first five-star establishment. She knew at once this was what she wanted to do, recalling: “The hotel industry always provides a high standard of service. And the people there are often educated well.”
After the Sedona, she headed overseas. Her first stop was Qatar in 2006, returning to Yangon when her father passed away in 2009. She moved to Dubai in 2011 before coming back for good five years ago. She regarded each top-tier hotel as a stepping stone, enhancing her pay, experience and prospects until she secured her current job.
In a country that only recently raised the minimum wage from 3,600 kyat to 4,800 kyat an hour (US$2.30 to US$3.10), there is a stark divide between the luxuriousness of her working environment and the austerity of everyday life in Yangon. But for Ma Ae, hotels and the lifeblood of tourism have provided her the means to climb out of poverty towards a more prosperous future.
Even though working women are frowned upon in Myanmar’s society, she earns the equivalent of US$300-US$400 per month compared to the US$100-US$200 more common in Yangon.
Moreover, in a city where most married women do not work, she makes more than her husband, who is a laundry supervisor. His income of about US$250 pays for the necessities while her salary is for their savings and luxury items.
