Announcing the winner of the Green Microphone Award 2019

The Green Microphone Award once again shed a light on sustainable tourism guides with a ceremony in the Town Hall of Ljubljana, Slovenia on World Tourism Day (September 27).

This event recap was written by Tina Hudnik and Maja Campelj – the tandem behind the G-Guides brand, sponsor of the Green Microphone Award. Tina and Maja also co-lead Slovenia Travel Massive.

Through their brand, G-Guides, they are creating unforgettable experiences for travelers, turning learning experiences into adventures and supporting destinations and companies with knowledge about sustainable development and responsible tourism practices. 

What is the Green Microphone Award?

The Green Microphone Award is the first award for sustainability and responsibility in tourist guiding. This international award aims to promote tourist guides who are cultural brokers, sustainability communicators, creators of unforgettable experience, educators and ambassadors of sustainable tourism for all.

The award is given to the guide with the best voice for responsible tourism.

It recognizes the effort and importance of the role that tourist guides play in accelerating sustainable development and responsible tourism.

Watch the video to learn more:

Who won the 2019 Green Microphone Award?

The winner of 2019 Green Microphone Award is Myo Min Zaw from Myanmar, who has been a professional tour guide for 20 years.

He founded the Tourism For All, Myanmar community to support essential service in Myanmar tourism, such as by donating rubbish bins, First Aid Kits and providing essential education tools to the monastic school, educating local people about public health, campaign in areas of tourist and non touristic sites.

Another one of his contributions is the Recycled Paper bag campaign with MTGA (Myanmar Tour Guide Association), which helps to remove plastic bags from tourist sites. Now around 10.000 recycled paper bags are being used in tourist sites of Myanmar.

Myo Min Zaw also started the Inle Canoe Lady (boutique canoe service) project to provide part-time jobs for low income women working in cheroot workshop. So far, the project has created 1500 canoe trips thus offering 1500 part-time jobs for women empowerment at Inle lake in Myanmar.

The event took place in the Town Hall of Ljubljana, but it was mainly planned as an online event, because we had participants from all over the world. As we always try our best to minimize the environmental impacts of our events, participants and members could join online from wherever they were. In this way, members who couldn’t join on the day can still watch the recap video online.

Apply for the Green Microphone Award 2020

Applications for the Green Microphone Award 2020 are now open. Do you know a guide who is exceptional at his or her work and does his / her best to accelerate sustainable development and sustainable tourism? Are you a guide yourself?

🌱 Apply to compete for the Green Microphone – voice of responsible tourism for 2020.

Follow Maja and Tina on Travel Massive to connect with them and learn more about their sustainable initiatives.