Myanmar to issue some visas on arrival ( AFP ) October 20


options

Myanmar to issue some visas on arrival

YANGON, Oct 20 (AFP)

Myanmar is to launch a visa-on-arrival program aimed at boosting flagging tourism to the military-ruled state, a report here said.

The immigration ministry said it will begin issuing the visas to individual travelers who arrive at Yangon's international airport on flights operated by Austria-based Lauda Air, according to the Myanmar Times.

A similar arrangement would be made with other airlines but would take time, U Khin Maung Latt, the director general of the ministry of hotels and tourism, was cited as saying in the semi-official weekly's edition to be published Monday.

It said the move follows an October 13 decision approved by the minister for hotels and tourism, Brigadier General Thein Zaw, adding that pre-arranged visas-on-arrival were already available to travelers arriving on package tours.

Lauda Air is due to inaugurate a non-stop service to Yangon from Vienna on November 6, the report stated. The flight returns to Vienna via the Thai resort island of Phuket.

"It will have a positive effect on the airline and will also benefit FITs (foreign individual travelers), business people and those making last-minute bookings," U Aung Naing, managing director of Myanmar travel company EPG, told the Times.

Myanmar's tourism industry is in its infancy, and the country's efforts to boost it have been dogged by wide- ranging sanctions against the military regime imposed by western governments.

Myanmar has been criticised for its human rights performance and refusal to hand over power to the National League for Democracy, led by Nobel peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, which won an overwhelming election victory in 1990.

The number of tourist arrivals at Yangon's airport slipped three percent last year to 204,862, a decline attributed to the industry's global downturn in the wake of the September 11 terror attacks in the United States.

Burmatoday do not take any responsibility for news content. Copyrights of news articles remain with the respective news agencies or reporter[s].