Dr. Andrea Valentin has been working as a Responsible Tourism Advisor in Myanmar since 2012, when she led the Myanmar Dos and Don’ts for Tourists Project, which became the official Myanmar guidelines for responsible travelers. She is the Founder of Tourism Transparency and the Myanmar CBT Network, and has advised a variety of tourism development projects in Myanmar over the years, ranging from Kachin in the very north of the country, to Tanintharyi in the very south. Her 2020 research interests focused on how DMOs could help facilitate responsible tourism development in a post-COVID-19 scenario in Myanmar. This interest derived from her 2018/2019 work in the very south of Myanmar, when she advised the Tanintharyi regional government, tourism businesses and local civil society organisations on the newly established Kawthaung DMO. As one of the first DMOs in the country, the aim was to ensure sustainability and climate justice in the Mergui Archipelago.

In 2021, and within the specific context of the Myanmar coup, Dr. Valentin continues to find ways to use tourism wisely and to implement justice mechanisms.

Dr. Valentin received her BA Honours from the University of Brighton in the UK. She graduated with Masters and Ph.D. from the University of Otago in New Zealand, where she worked as a University Lecturer, teaching sustainability, research methods and the impacts of tourism. Her Ph.D. thesis focused on the politics of tourism in Myanmar.