Myanmar Tourism Is No Pariah at Asia-Pacific Travel Mart
Skift Take
It was mostly business as usual for Myanmar tourism at the Pacific Asia Travel Association's 2018 travel mart. With visitation to Myanmar declining from Europe, the Americas, and Africa, Myanmar is going after Chinese, Japanese, and Korean tourists. But so is almost everyone else.
If you might have thought there would be some discontent about traveling to Myanmar these days at the Pacific Asia Travel Association event this week in Langkawi, Malaysia, you'd be hard-pressed to find any.
This is, after all, a travel trade show, and there currently are no major calls for a travel boycott because of the Myanmar government's ethnic cleaning campaign, or genocide, against its Muslim Rohingya population, an atrocity that began in 2012.
Myanmar, including its Ministry of Hotels and Tourism, had a prominent position on the trade show floor at the Mahsuri International Exhibition Centre in Langkawi. The Myanmar booth was near the front entrance to the exhibit floor right next to Tourism Malaysia, the event's host country.
Zaw Myo Latt, the deputy director of the Myanmar ministry's tourism promotion department, said visitor arriva
