Myanmar is planning to allow visa on arrival for tourists from Austria, Czech Republic, Hungary, Luxemburg, and New Zealand starting from January 1 next year, announced the Ministry of Hotel and Tourism on December 19.

The tourists from those countries will be charged US$50 each and they can stay 30 days. The visa extension will not be allowed, it said.

A total of 2,958 tourists from New Zealand visited Myanmar from January to October this year and 2,610 tourists from Austria visited in this period. Tourists from the other three countries visited Myanmar a little.

Due to the Rakhine conflicts, the number of tourists from Western countries fell by 40 percent and tourism authorities are drawing plans to attract tourists by reducing visa restrictions.

Myanmar extended the free visa from 14 days to 30 days for Vietnamese tourists during Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyễn Xuân Phúc’s visit to Myanmar.

As part of the east look policy, Myanmar granted visa exemption for tourists from Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong and Macau, special administrative regions of China and visa on arrival for Chinese tourists from October 1, 2018, to September 30, 2020.

The arrival of Chinese tourists is increased by over 650,000 from January to October this year with about 40,000 South Korean tourists and about 20,000 Japanese tourists in compared with the same period in last year, according to the ministry.

Myanmar reduced visa restrictions for tourists from Germany, Russia, Spain, Italy, Switzerland, and Australia to enter Myanmar with arrival on visa and the number of tourist arrival from Spain and Italy is increased a little.

The number of tourist arrival from airports, ports and border gates from January to October in 2018 was over 2.8 million and over 3.5 million in the same period in this year. Most of them are entered through border gates, according to the ministry.