Thursday 9 January 2014

Myanmar readies for tourism expansion

YANGON, 8 January 2014: To reach 7.5 million tourist arrivals by 2020, Myanmar will need to improve human resources and offer a variety of tourism destinations, according to Myanmar Travel Association chairman, Aung Myat Kyaw.

He told local media, Tuesday, the country’s political and economic reform would help to create the environment to sustain a massive growth in tourism. He talked about pent-up demand in major tourism source markets mainly in Europe that could deliver quality tourism to the country.

“The country’s image will draw more tourists, but we need better infrastructure, security services and quality delivery to sustain the growth,” he said.

It will require new infrastructure, better training institutes for the travel business and the complete overall of the banking system to allow full use of credit cards by international visitors.

“We are already gaining more visitors from neighbouring countries; for example Thailand and China… and there were many cultural attractions, beach destinations and adventure travel options that could be used to promote the tourism industry.”

According to the Ministry of Hotels and Tourism’s latest data, the number of foreign arrivals reached 2.04 million in 2013, counting both airline and overland arrivals.

Of that total, about 885,000 tourists arrived by airline, 6,000 came via cruise ships and 1.14 million travelled into Myanmar on overland transport.

source: TTR Weekly

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