Myanmar's tourism boom means even the UN is forced out of its hotel offices
Skift Take
Sign of the times: Tourism and investment is booming in Myanmar, and Yangon's hotel shortage is not helping anyone for now, expect hotel who can charge exorbitantly and dictate terms.
The United Nations is being forced out of billionaire Robert Kuok’s Traders Hotel in Yangon next month amid a tourism boom in Myanmar after housing various offices in five floors of the property since 2007.
The UN signed its last lease for the hotel owned by Kuok’s Shangri-La Asia Ltd. in August 2012 for a final year, said Aye Win, a Yangon-based spokesman for the agency. A 10th of its 2,000 employees in the country are still in the hotel, he said.
“Prices for hotel rooms are skyrocketing in Yangon as limited supply cannot match the soaring demand,” Aye Win said in an e-mailed response. “Increasing demand from tourism and investment makes it more profitable for the hotel to get back to its initial purpose.”
As Myanmar President Thein Sein allows more political freedom and loosens economic controls since coming to power two years ago, nations including the U.S. have eased sanctions. With tourists and business traveler
