Burma Tourism Report Ignores Cyclone, Demonstrations

Bangkok—A prestigious international tourism industry organization has made optimistic predictions for Burma this year despite new evidence that political instability and Cyclone Nargis have devastated the country’s tourist sector.

The London-based World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC) forecasts in a report that Burma’s tourism industry will grow a healthy 4.1 percent this year and provide jobs for 1,297,000 people—5.8 percent of total employment.

The rosy picture contradicts two other reports this week that give a pessimistic outlook.

Burma’s Tourism Entrepreneurs Association is quoted in media reports admitting that the effects of Cyclone Nargis alone have reduced tourist visitors to the country so far this year by a massive 90 percent.

The gloomy figure is underlined by an announcement from Singapore Airlines’ subsidiary Silk Air that it is cutting services to Burma and China through to March 2009.

“A few of our destinations have been hit by natural disasters this year, and that meant we have had to adjust down our capacity expansion plans and reduce flight frequency,” said CEO Chin Yau Seng this week.

The WTTC—whose slogan is “Working with Governments to Raise Awareness of the Importance of the World’s Largest Generator of Wealth and Jobs”—commissioned its report from Accenture, the large American management consulting company headquartered in the tax haven Bermuda.

The report makes no reference to Nargis or mass street protests last September and the subsequent military crackdown across the country, both of which made negative global headlines.

The company did not return emailed enquiries on
Friday asking if the report had taken these recent events into account in its industry growth forecasts.

It is also unclear just how much the report has relied on regime figures.

The WTTC 2008 prediction is part of a 10-year growth appraisal for the sector, and suggests that by 2018 tourism will be contributing US $1.61 billion to Burma’s gross domestic product.

The report also claims that in 10 years tourism will be employing 1,638,000 people—providing one in every 17 jobs in the country.

Burma Economics Watch compiler Sean Turnell questions the WTTC-supplied figures, especially the conversion rate between local currency and the US dollar—an essential element of the report’s growth forecasts.

“The exchange rates used are all over the place,” Turnell, professor of economics and Burma specialist at Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia, told The Irrawaddy. “I guess they’re just extrapolating exchange rate movements ahead according to trend, but are they this clever?”

Burma's TEA says it is now planning an industry recovery program for the next three years. This would include “introduction of market promotion activities to get world tourists well informed of some tourist sites free from the impact of the cyclone,” according to a report by the Chinese official news agency Xinhua.

The Ministry of Hotels and Tourism also said it as promoting a festival early next year at Inlay in Shan State.

Among other statistics, the WTTC forecasts what it calls exports earnings from tourism in Burma to generate 3.7 percent, or $146 million, of the country’s total exports value in 2008.

Turnell’s verdict: “Overall, I’d have to say the report is pretty worthless.”