Reporter - Aye Mya Kyaw
Yangon, 17 October

In order to discover ways to improve the current situations in the tourism sector, the Minister for Hotel and Tourism met with the entrepreneurs from travel and tour industry at a workshop held at the Kandawgyi Palace Hotel, according to a business executive who attended it.

The workshop analyzed the situations which happened in September and found that official statistics collected between 1 to 9 October shows that 391 foreign tourists came to Yangon through Yangon International Airport, a ninety percent drop from the previous year's figures. Last year, 3 604 tourists arrived in the same period.

However, some foreign tourists are coming back to the country from October this year. Similarly, from 16 to 30 September this year, 3 788 tourists came through Yangon International Airport, 2 000 less than last year, according to the statistics. Last year, 5 233 tourists came within the same period.

At this time, the number of tourists arriving by package tours has fallen substantially but there is no noticeable decline in the number of FITs (foreign independent tour), according to the entrepreneurs in the industry who had expected this year to be a record-breaking year in terms of tourist arrival as they anticipated more visitors this year than the previous years.

To unravel the current issues affecting in the industry, the Minister urged the entrepreneurs to employ internet, email and other methods to boost up the tourism services.