Grim headlines keep tourists away in Myanmar cyclone's wake (Feature)

By Kristina Rich Oct 9, 2008, 6:43 GMT

   Yangon - It's 7 in the morning and the Shwedagon Pagoda's gold-covered pinnacle in Myanmar's largest city, Yangon, slowly emerges from the mist and glitters in the sunshine.

   Markets in the city formerly known as Rangoon have been busy for hours as women balance their purchases in woven baskets on their heads.

   The damage done by Cyclone Nargis in May has been cleared long ago, but nevertheless, lethargy lies over Yangon.

   'No tourists,' a taxi driver laments.

   'Most of our rooms are empty,' a hotel manager complains.

   A pot of steamed rice at a hotel breakfast buffet remains untouched while seven waitresses twiddle their thumbs.

   The situation in the rest of the South-East Asian country is similar as tour operators only occasionally obtain customer requests.

   After the rainy season ends in October, Myanmar generally enjoys sunny weather and the main tourist season starts, but tourism operators agree that so far, nothing can be felt in terms of a high season.

   The military junta's mismanagement over the past 40 years has made Myanmar, formerly called Burma, one of Asia's poorest countries, even before the tourism downturn.

   Its tourism industry has not been helped by headlines the country has made in the past 15 months.

   In September 2007, the military regime brutally suppressed an uprising by thousands of Buddhist monks.

   Seven months later, Cyclone Nargis smashed into the southern coastline and devastated the Irrawaddy River Delta and Yangon, leaving about 138,000 people dead or missing.

   Both events have caused foreign tourists to shy away. In November 2007, the largest number of Western tourists came from Germany with 2,151 visitors, according to the tourism ministry. The largest group of Asian travellers in the same month arrived from neighbouring China at 3,901.

   In January, German arrivals had dwindled to 1,440 visitors, and in June, this figure had diminished to a mere 177 arrivals.

   The prospects for the beginning of this year's high season are worse still.

   'Many potential visitors think the country has been completely destroyed by the cyclone or that new disasters could happen at any moment,' says Katharina Vaeth, manager of the Savoy Hotel in Yangon.

   'But neither is the case,' she says. 'Destinations like Bagan, Mandalay, Ngapali Beach and the area around Inle Lake were left completely untouched by Nargis.'

   Other potential travellers only became aware through news coverage that the country was ruled by the military and subsequently cancelled their travel plans.

   'It is the ordinary Burmese people who suffer most if no tourists come,' says Carsten Schmidt, managing director of Uniteam travel agency in Yangon.

   Hundreds of hotel maids, drivers, chefs and waitresses have been laid off since tourist arrivals have dwindled. They are often the only breadwinners for their large families.

   But the junta has shown little interest in the tourism industry, and the reclusive junta leader, General Than Shwe, exhibits a high degree of paranoia toward all foreigners.

   Hardly any government funds are allocated to develop tourism, which is why 88 privately run travel agencies, hotels and airlines have established the Myanmar Marketing Committee, which promotes the country as a travel destination at international tourism exhibitions.

   The ancient royal city of Bagan, also known as Pagan, with its hundreds of temple ruins, is among the highlights of any Myanmar visit, but on one October morning, only seven American retirees are sitting on the flight there from Yangon.

   The continuing leg to the northern city of Mandalay and to Inle Lake has practically no foreign tourists on board.

   The 22-kilometre-long lake is located at an elevation of almost 1,000 metres in the Shan hills.

   Carefully manicured floating gardens, villages on stilts, and many hotels and bungalow resorts dot the lake shore, but some of them are mothballed.

   Several dozen motorboats that usually ferry tourists across the lake lie moored at deserted piers.

   Even in the usually tourist-crammed grounds of the Shwedagon Pagoda, locals mostly have the place to themselves.

   A student has discovered a single female foreigner and talks to her in broken German.

   'All German language courses at our university are fully booked,' he tells her.

   She inquires if that is because of all the upcoming jobs to be filled in the tourism industry.

   'No,' replies the young man, 'it's because the only jobs available at the moment are with German aid organizations.'