Insight MYANMAR


Tourism Minister Htay Aung, has forecast international arrivals will reach 3.0 million by the end of 2014, after reporting a 40 percent increase to almost 2.0 million arrivals in the eight months to the end of August. In 2013, Myanmar reported 2.04 million foreign tourists, generating $926 million in revenues.


But while travel operators welcomed moves to licence casinos, there were also calls for strict controls to be put in place and for efforts to be made to close down illegal operations throughout the country. Also, some expressed concern over whether it would be the right direction for


Myanmar to take when developing its tourism industry.


Sean Turnell, an economics professor at Australia's Macquarie University, said: "I think this is a negative development for Burma's tourism sector. Of course gambling is an attraction already in outlying regions near China, but is much less so elsewhere in the country," he said. Turnell has closely monitored developments in Myanmar over recent years.


"In my opinion, Burma should not go chasing this low rent trade with all its attendant social and


Tourism Minister Htay Aung, has forecast international arrivals will reach 3.0 million by the end of 2014, after reporting a 40 percent increase to almost 2.0 million arrivals in the eight months to the end of August. In 2013, Myanmar reported 2.04 million foreign tourists, generating $926 million in revenues. Htay Aung, Tourism Minister, Myanmar


cultural costs," he said. More attention, he says, should be paid to the affluent overseas travellers and educated and culturally aware backpacker sectors which leave "a smaller destructive footprint."


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