The crystal waters and untouched beaches of the Myeik Archipelago in Southern Myanmar are a big draw for tourists.

MYANMAR is looking beyond short-term considerations in promoting its tourism industry, with a focus on benefiting not only travellers but also the people who work in the industry, said leading tourism experts from the government and private sectors.

Myanmar is also concentrating on ensuring that tourism has positive effects on the country’s natural, social and cultural environments, they said.

Efforts to promote travel to Myanmar have been stepped up in the past decade as the country has begun to realise that the tourism sector is one of the biggest generators of money and jobs in the world.

Statistics issued by the Ministry of Hotels and Tourism earlier this year show that the number of tourist arrivals has increased by about 50 per cent in the past five years.

The statistics, which are posted on the ministry’s website, show that the total number of tourists who visited Myanmar increased from 416,344 in 2000 to 656,910 last year. They also indicate that more than 280,000 tourists visited during the first five months of this year.

As the peak 2005-2006 tourist season draws closer, the ministry said it expects an increase in the number to tourist arrivals from last season.

“We have a high expectation that the number of tourists visiting Myanmar during the upcoming tourist peak season [from October to May] will be higher than last season,” said a statement from the ministry that was issued to the Myanmar Times on September 14.

“Genuine tourists like our tourism product . . . especially our intangible hospitality,” the statement said.

Myanmar’s status as one of a safest travel destination in Asia has also boosted the potential for growth in the coming season.

“Security is the basic consideration in choosing a travel destination. We place high emphasis on the security of our citizens as well as of travellers to our country,” the statement said.

It predicted that the number of travellers from Europe and the United States would increase during the coming season.

The statement said that for the longer term, the government has been promoting nature-based tourism to bring the benefits of the travel sector to the country’s rural population.

It said the government’s policy of developing the industry gradually would help to avoid the negative impacts of tourism.

“That is how we can achieve sustainable development in tourism,” the statement said.

The ministry said it believes that one of the most popular travel destinations in the country, the Inle Lake region in Shan State, will attract more visitors this year as tourist facilities in the region have improved in the past year.

A sales manager at the Inle Resort Hotel, Daw San San Htay, said the hotel has already received bookings for 80 per cent of its rooms through the peak season.

She said the resort, which has facilities equivalent to those in a five-star hotel, opened in July with 30 rooms and has plans to double its capacity by the 2006-2007 peak season as the tourism prospects in the country increase.

The World Travel and Tourism Council, a London-based tourism think-tank, predicted that Myanmar would experience a 0.8 per cent increase in tourist numbers this year, with a 1.1 per cent annual increase from 2006 to 2015.
A report issued by the council earlier this year said the tourism industry will directly or indirectly benefit more than 650,000 people in the country this year.

The chairman of the non-governmental Myanmar Hotelier Association, U Khin Shwe, told the Myanmar Times on September 22 that expanding the amount of accommodation and improving services in the country would help increase the number of tourist arrivals.

“Facilities and services are improving in our hotels, and we seriously count on our warm hospitality to gain a competitive edge over hotels in other countries,” he said, adding that he believed there could be a 25 per cent increase in tourist arrivals this year compared with last year.

He said the increasing quantity and improving facilities of hotels in Myanmar serve as a good platform for the country’s tourism promotion campaign.

“But we also need to increase flight frequencies and expand the passenger handling capacity at our airports, as well as improve transportation facilities, to see growth in the number of tourists,” U Khin Shwe said.

“We need more tourists for tourism-related businesses to grow, but at the same time we need to control the number of visitors until we can establish the facilities to handle a huge influx,” he said.

Daw Su Su Tin, the managing director of Exotissimo Travel Myanmar, one of the biggest tour operators in the country, said bookings at her agency for the 2005-2006 season were 10 per cent higher than during the same period last year.

“We are able to accept more bookings for this season as the number of domestic airlines has increased, and as more hotels have opened in the Inle Lake region and at Ngapali Beach,” she said.

She said bookings from Germany and France in particular have increased at her agency for the upcoming season.

Daw Su Su Tin said one reason for the growing interest in travelling to Myanmar was the inauguration of a concerted campaign to advertise the country’s tourism potential.

As part of this campaign, the Myanmar Marketing Committee, a private-sector tourism promotion agency, has organised familiarisation trips for tour operators from across the globe.

Daw Su Su Tin, who is a senior member of the committee, said the program was launched four years ago and was particularly successful last year, as more than 100 tour operators from Europe, the US and Russia visited Myanmar.

The trips are offered in May and September at a discount of more than 50 per cent off the normal cost.

U Phone Thant, a spokesperson for the non-government Union of Myanmar Travel Association, said the association believes that the development of the tourism industry also depends a great deal on increasing the number of visitors during the off-peak season.

He said central Myanmar, which receives less rain than other parts of the country, can be visited throughout year, a fact that the association is trying to bring to the attention of international travel agents and travel writers by holding talks with them.

“The most widely used tour books continue to publicise Myanmar as only a dry season destination,” he said.