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More Tourists Visit Myanmar by Land



More Tourists Visit Myanmar by Land

Xinhua, Rangoon, 13 October 2000.   A total of 119,103 foreign
tourists visited Myanmar in the first six months of this year, of whom
60,987 entered the country by land through border points while
57,878 came by air, said the official Monthly Indicators in its latest issue.

The higher number of tourists coming in by land was attributed to
the absorption of cross-border tourists from neighboring countries
especially Thailand and China.

Despite a drop of 29.6 percent in the number of cross-border tourists
in the six-month period compared with the same period of 1999,
there exist better prospects in the cross-border tourism
industry in the near future.

According to an earlier official report, Myanmar and Thai tourism
authorities agreed last month on the promotion of cooperation in
the development of the tourism industry between the two countries,
based on an accord on tourism cooperation initiated in July 1998.

Aimed at drawing more tourists from Thailand, Myanmar is also
scheduled to hold its third travel show in Bangkok on October 17.

Meanwhile, Myanmar also signed last July with China a new
accord on bilateral cooperation in the tourism sphere along with
two other documents on cooperation in economic and
scientific-technological spheres.

It is expected that tourist arrivals across the border will pick
up and boost in a short time following the country's signing
of these accords respectively with Thailand and China, both
of which are main suppliers of tourists to Myanmar by land.

Myanmar has so far added more than a dozen entry points
along its border in five states and divisions for foreign tourists
and allowed them to visit inland far up to the capital of Yangon.

According to official statistics, in the last five years, Myanmar
annually received 200,000 foreign tourists, earning over 30 million
U.S. dollars, 2.8 million Thai baht and 1.7 million Chinese RMB
yuan.

The statistics also show that the country has so far obtained
1. 1 billion dollars of contracted foreign investment in more than
40 projects in the sector of hotels and tourism since the country
opened to such investment in late 1988.