MYANMAR’S Ministry of Hotels and Tourism is targeting 2015 arrivals to surpass last year’s over three million visitors, but the trade is urging for a tourism development approach that focuses more on sustainability than numbers.
Speaking on the sidelines of the ASEAN Tourism Forum in Nay Pyi Taw last month, tourism minister Htay Aung had said that Myanmar hopes to attract 4.5 to five million tourists this year.
Calling the focus on generating numbers an old-fashioned approach to tourism development, Andrea Valentin, director of Yangon-based NGO Tourism Transparency, said: “The authorities should focus on what they said they would do when they passed the Responsible Tourism Policy in 2012 and the Community-Involved Tourism Policy in 2013.”
Referring to the government’s recent announcement on the construction of 20 new hotel zones nationwide, she said: “Creating high-end luxury hotel zones without meaningful stakeholder consultations with the affected people who will have to make way for such developments stand in direct contrast to the responsible tourism pledge.
“Also, are the tourism infrastructure needs being defined according to what’s needed? Of course we need more and better hotels, but we also need small guesthouses.”
She added that such a development not only benefits merely a small tourism elite, neglecting the needs of people on the ground, but may also lead to over-capacity, which in turn could cause a price war, affecting Myanmar’s image as a unique tourism destination.
“The voices of those directly affected by hotel constructions absolutely need to be taken into account,” she opined.
Concurred Marek Lenarcik, general manager of Thahara: “Focusing on increasing tourism numbers is never a sustainable approach, especially as it seems last year’s three million visitors included all border crossings, even if the visitor spent less than 24 hours in the country.”
He suggested: “The more sustainable approach would include promoting parts of Myanmar as year-round destinations, extending an average length of stay and encouraging investors to develop hospitality services beyond the major destinations.”
