54 FEATURE
myanmar
MYANMAR GOLDEN TIMES
After many years in the doldrums, Myanmar tourism is now full steam ahead, with its ancient monuments, golden pagodas, timeless rural scenes and even beaches in demand, says Andrew Eames
I
s there no end to Myanmar’s burgeoning popularity? Just when you might have thought the mad rush for this south-east Asian destination would start to abate, along come two particularly popular television programmes – BBC’s Wild Burma and Top Gear’s two-part Burma Special – and the hotels are full to bursting again. In 2010, a mere 800,000 foreign tourists
were registered in the country, but that fi gure had multiplied almost threefold to more than 2.04 million by 2013, with an aim of seven million by 2020. And yet this is still a nation “very new to high
volume tourism”, said Emma Garrick, Burma manager at Exodus. “Thus the infrastructure remains relatively underdeveloped for touristic purposes, in comparison to nearby countries such as Thailand and Vietnam.” The destination fi rst saw the fl oodgates open three years ago, when Aung San Suu Kyi said
Myanmar’s travel boycott should end, and now barely a month goes by without some new announcement: a new river cruiser is launched, a new land border is opened, a new region pioneered. “Times have changed dramatically over the
last couple of years, with a more developed infrastructure and new hotels popping up,” said Colin Wilson, Group Sales Director at All Leisure Holidays Group. “However Myanmar still remains
“Up-sell by suggesting that clients add on a beach stay. Myanmar’s beaches match Thailand – with fewer people, but the beach season lasts only
between October and April” MANDA CHURCHILL, GENERAL MANAGER, TRAVEL INDOCHINA
www.sellinglonghaul.com
charming and untouched by mass tourism.” The lack of hotel rooms in cities such as
Yangon and Mandalay in particular, mean that in peak season (November - February), availability can become a problem. The country currently has 960 hotels, motels and guest houses, with a total of 36,500 rooms, but only 23 of those establishments are of four- or fi ve-star standard. In the near future a further 2,000 rooms will
become available, according to the tourism ministry, and offi cials have made efforts to restrict some of the huge room rate rises imposed by hotels during the boom. The ministry’s newly-adopted Responsible Tourism Policy has meant limiting the number of new hotels around Bagan, in particular, pending UNESCO’s World Heritage status award. The nation’s main assets remain the same:
a centuries-old culture with countless ancient monuments, a landscape full of variety, a
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