NEWS -Myanmar Introduces Ecotourism

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Myanmar Introduces Ecotourism

               Xinhua
               09-FEB-98

               YANGON (Feb. 10) XINHUA -
               Myanmar has introduced ecotourism
               in an effort to promote tourism
               without harming the nature by
               opening a mountain resort in the
               Kyaukpadaung area, Mandalay
               Division. 

               The 232-square-kilometer Popa
               Mountain Resort, which was
               inaugurated Monday, is a forest
               reserve and a famous historical
               landmark, Myanmar Minister for
               Forestry U Aung Phone was quoted
               by Tuesday's The New Light of
               Myanmar as saying. 

               The establishment of the resort and
               ecotourism services is to enable
               tourists to study the significant
               features of the region and increase
               the income of the local people, the
               minister said at the opening
               ceremony. 

               The resort with eight rest houses,
               undertaken by the Woodland Travels
               Co. Ltd., is the only green place in
               the arid region, he noted. 

               Meanwhile, to promote its tourism
               industry, Myanmar has opened some
               islands including the Thahtay Island
               in Kawthaung to foreign investors to
               build resorts. A resort hotel, the first
               of its kind, was already built and
               opened by the Andaman Club Co.
               Ltd. of Thailand on the Thahtay
               Island in November 1995. 

               According to official statistics, tourist
               arrivals in Myanmar reached 168,787
               in the first eight months of 1997, a
               10.7-percent increase over a year
               earlier. 

               The data also show that foreign
               investment in Myanmar's hotel and
               tourism sector stood at 763 million
               U.S. dollars in 39 permitted projects
               at the end of 1997, out of a total
               foreign investment of 6.6 billion
               dollars in the country.