In Myanmar—a country with a fraught political situation and ongoing human-rights issues—Yin Myo Su is championing sustainable, local tourism as both an economic driver and stabilizing force. In the Inle Lake region, one of the country’s main travel destinations, Myo Su manages both her family’s prominent Inle Princess Resort and her Inle Heritage Foundation, devoted to creating opportunities while promoting the area’s Inthar culture.

The nonprofit foundation runs a hospitality school for locals, which Myo Su funds, in part, through a growing constellation of social businesses aimed at tourists: a restaurant, a cultural center, and a collection of traditional guesthouses on stilts. Myo Su believes that responsible tourism can be a transformative force in her country. “We have to make change ourselves,” she says. “We can’t rely on traditional leadership to do it.”

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