A fisherman casts his trap into the waters of Lake Inle. Pic: Stuart Deed

COME back to Myanmar – that’s the message a high-level group, led by the Ministry of Hotels and Tourism, is sending to foreign tourists. Following the fall in the number of visitors from overseas last year, their aim is to rebrand Myanmar as a prime tourist destination.

The group met on August 31 at the Inya Lake Hotel. In addition to hotels minister Major-General Soe Naing and deputy minister Brigadier-General Aye Myint Kyu from the Ministry of Hotels and Tourism, participants included high-ranking officials from the ministries of Transport, Foreign Affairs, Immigration and Population, Finance and Revenue; the Union of Myanmar Travel Association; the Myanmar Hotelier Association; the Myanmar Marketing Committee; the stakeholders in the travel sector of Mandalay; Inle; Bagan; and Nyaung Oo.

The focus was on two of the country’s most popular tourist destinations – Inle Lake and Mandalay. “With the aim of improving tourist arrivals, we have a project to host tourist festivals in Mandalay and Inle Lake in February 2009,” said Brig Gen Aye Myint Kyu.

As the Myanmar calendar offers traditional festivals for every month except February, he added, “We are planning to hold the festivals annually every February to promote a tourist-attractive calendar.”

In an effort to make Mandalay even more attractive to tourists, a handicrafts fair will be held in the first week of February 2009 at the city’s Inwa Hotel. The first exhibition of this kind, featuring 10 different kinds of handicraft, took place in January 2000.

The festival on Inle lake in February 2009, to be called Inle Orchid Images, will display many types of orchid and is aimed at tourists. It will also feature the booths of Inle, Kalaw, Taunggyi and Pindaya selling traditional foods around a floating market. The festival will last for three days.

Brig Gen Aye Myint Kyu urged stakeholders in the travel industry to cooperate with the ministry in the running of the festival, and encouraged travel agencies to promote it widely.

“In the first eight months of this year, 40 percent of tourists went to Inle, of whom 25pc were from Spain,” said U Zaw Htay Aung, the executive director of Inle Zone Travels Services. “Last year’s tourist arrivals to Inle dropped by 60pc compared with 2006 arrivals,” he added.