Booming tourism urges amending tourism law

Published on Saturday, 09 February 2013 17:11

The travel industry is urging the government to redraw its laws to accommodate the growing number of Myanmar citizens travelling abroad.

Myanmar has been recently high in rate of its citizens’ travelling abroad, the country’s outdated Tourism Law was proposed by the Union of Myanmar Travel Association (UMTA) to be redrafted, the chairperson of the UMTA Dr. Aung Myat Kyaw told the Eleven Media Group.

Action on the proposal will be taken consideration by the parliament.

Licence to services of local travelling agencies, according to the ministry’s permission, intend only for the international tourists’ itineraries within Myanmar. However, the agencies serve for the tourism of Myanmar citizens to tour abroad without lawfully, but by own services, he said.

Myanmar’s current legislation enforcement technically does not include for outbound programs. In fact, Myanmar people’s overseas visits have been remarkably high since 2006, with different purposes – medical checkup, shopping, itinerary, pilgrimage or education.

Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore are the main destinations for touring, medical checkups and itinerary whereas India and Nepal are taken as the pilgrimage destinations.

“No matter what their main purposes are, when people go abroad by the assistances of unlicensed agencies, lack of security threatens them,” said the chairperson urging to redraft the outdated tourism law in order to getting travelers rights.

Comprising twelve chapters, the Myanmar Tourism Law was enacted on June 20, 1990. Holding over 900 tourism companies, Myanmar tourism industry has been booming nowadays due to the increasing of both inbound and outbound.