Myanmar tourist guides have yet to receive an officially set standard payment rate and are currently operating according to a proposed rate, according to the Myanmar Tourist Guides Association (MTGA).
MTGA has arrived at a daily rate of $35 for tourist guides and proposed the rate to the Union of Myanmar Travel Association (UMTA) in September last year.
The $35 daily rate needs to be agreed upon by both MTGA and UMTA to be official but is still under discussion between the relevant bodies.
Ma Kalyar, a travel agent operating out of Yangon, said that $35 per day is about the average, but some agencies try to pay less.
While the number of tourists visiting the country has been increasing greatly in recent years, the statistics of the Ministry of Hotel and Tourism, the body responsible for accrediting tourist guides, shows that only 3,749 tourist guides and 711 on-site local guides have been certified so far.
Among the ministry accredited guides are 2,187 English speaking guides, 403 Japanese speaking guides, 277 French speaking guides, 264 German speaking guides, 132 Thai speaking guides, 132 Chinese speaking guides, 111 Spanish speaking guides, 68 Russian speaking guides, 64 Italian speaking guides and 29 Korean speaking guides, according to the statistics.
Besides these, the ministry believes that many guides are operating without official registration.
The proposed standard rate was devised based on the rates of the English speaking guides whose numbers far exceed that of other language speaking guides.
