Tourism investment up despite drop in visitors

Tourists and Myanmar visitors watch the sun set from the top of a temple at Bagan. Photo: Staff

The number of foreign travelers visiting in Myanmar is down on 2015, but foreign investment in the tourist sector shows a 15 percent increase, according to data from the Ministry of Hotels and Tourism. Although officials caution that investment decisions should be based on the right data.

Ministry data shows that as of the end of September this year 3.1 million tourists had visited the country, compared with 3.3 million over the same period in 2015.

But that has not stopped the potential for Myanmar tourism attracting US$3 billion in foreign investment across 56 projects as of the end of November, according to U Myint Htwe, director of the tourism ministry.

“That’s up from $2.6 billion across 48 projects in 2015, which [in dollar value] is an increase of over 15pc,” he told The Myanmar Times. By country of origin, Thailand is the “biggest investor in tourism this year, while United Arab Emirates was the smallest investors”, he added.

The country has increased the number of hotel rooms available for tourists from 9132 at the end of 2015 to 11207 at the end of November, ministry data showed.

But some travel industry operators are worried that investors and tourism entrepreneurs are basing investment decisions on bad data. Analysts have been questioning how Myanmar compiles its tourism data for years, because the majority of foreign visitors recorded are day trippers arriving by land from China or Thailand.

Of the 3.3 million visitors that had visited by the end of September 2015, only 1.1 million arrived by international airport or port, according to tourism ministry data. As of the end of September this year, the number of border-crossing visitors was the same – 2.2 million – but the number of international arrivals was down to 900,000.

The total number of tourist reported in 2015 was 4.68 million, a figure that the United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) accepted. But U Ohn Maung, Minister for Hotels and Tourism, said at a recent forum on sustainable tourism that this number was the wrong figure for hotel investors to look at.

The minister was speaking at a Sustainable Tourism Development forum in Taw Win Garden hotel in Yangon on December 7.

“When the investors extend hotel projects based on this data, they [risk] losses because the real tourist number is more [like] 1.2 million visitors last year,” he said. “That’s why we intend to release the right figures such as how many real tourists visited and how many are day return trippers across the border,” U Ohn Maung said.

Tourism ministry director U Myo Win Nyunt said previously that the ministry will reconsider the system for country tourist arrivals, and intends to release the new data once every two months.

But despite the actual number of tourists being far lower than the data suggests, the tourism and hotel industry remains in need of investment in human resources and skilled labour, said U Ohn Maung.

“We are planning to development human resources by cooperating with the education department and open vocational training schools,” he said. “We have already trained around 10,000 people within the first nine months this year and that program is continuing.”

U Ohn Maung also expects a 35pc increase in visitors from Singapore following the start of a visa exemption program between the two countries on December 1.

“I do expect an increase in Singaporeans travellers if we successfully promote the variety of tourist attractions Myanmar has to offer,” he said. “Myanmar is safe, excellent to travel in the whole year round, and Myanmar food is certainly something to come back for over and over again.”

Over 100,000 visitors from Myanmar travelled to Singapore last year, but only 40,000 visitors from Singapore arrived in Myanmar.

“It is not fair in terms of tourism,” said Daw May Myat Mon Win, chair of the Myanmar Tourism Marketing Committee. “From the very beginning many Myanmar people go to Singapore for a variety of reasons such as study, job opportunity, medical treatment and leisure. Many more people will go with the visa exemption, so we have to promote our tourism [industry] to attract travelers into Myanmar.”

The imbalance exists between countries, but this also gives Myanmar a lot of potential, she said. More than 200,000 people from Myanmar visited Thailand last year, while only around 150,000 Thai visitors came to Myanmar, said Daw May Myat Mon Win.

“That’s why the [Myanmar tourism] market is a attractive,” she said.

Source :Myanmar Times