YANGON – Myanmar’s Ministry of Hotels and Tourism (MOHT) has asked travel agencies and travel agencies to temporarily suspend services to Chinese tourists planning to visit Myanmar due to growing concerns over the coronavirus outbreak.
U Aung Aye Han, the ministry’s deputy director, told The Irrawaddy, “We warned them (travel companies) to stop providing all travel-related services to potential Chinese tourists in the country until the outbreak subsides.”
On Feb. 1, Myanmar suspended visa-on-arrival privileges for Chinese tourists to prevent the spread of the coronavirus to the country.
U Aung Aye Han said: “Although the visa on arrival has been suspended, (Chinese tourists) can still use the e-visa. They can still enter the country by applying for an e-visa. So, we are worried.”
“We also warned them not to provide their services to people who might have entered the country on an e-visa,” he said.
On Monday, the transport ministry held a meeting with representatives from more than a dozen tour companies in Yangon, Mandalay and Nay Pyi Taw that mainly cater to Chinese tourists.
“They need to work with us to prevent the spread of the coronavirus,” U Aung Aye Han said.
“We hope that as the number of tourists from virus-affected areas decreases, the risk of infection in our country will decrease,” he said.
Myanmar announced in October 2018 that tourists from mainland China are eligible for visas on arrival. Since then, the number of tourists from mainland China to Myanmar has increased significantly.
From January 19 to October 2019, the number was 593,658, more than double the figure for the same period in 2018, making Chinese tourists the largest foreign tourists in Myanmar, according to the Ministry of Health.
According to the Hotel and Tourism Federation, more than 20% of Chinese bookings have been canceled since the outbreak began.
U Myo Yee, chairman of the Mandalay District Federation of the Myanmar Tourism Association, told The Irrawaddy that a mere suspension of visas on arrival will not stop Chinese tourists from visiting Myanmar. He said he noticed some flights continued to provide scheduled services back and forth between China and Mandalay.
“This move (requiring travel agencies to suspend services) will significantly reduce the number of Chinese tourists. As far as I know, we have been checking all Chinese tourists very carefully at the airport. Hopefully these actions will reduce the risk of infection.”
Mandalay is the second largest commercial center in Myanmar and one of the main destinations for Chinese tourists to Myanmar.
“On the other hand, Myanmar’s tourism industry has been hit hard since the outbreak,” he said.
On Friday, Presidential Office spokesman U Zaw Htay said Myanmar had no plans to close its border with China or ban Chinese tourists from visiting Myanmar.
However, Myanmar officials are conducting temperature checks at airports and border crossings. China and Myanmar share a 2,227-kilometer-long border. There are a total of 14 checkpoints in Kachin and Shan states, as well as in the Kokang, Wa and Mongla regions.
China announced its first coronavirus case on December 31 in Wuhan, Hubei province. The virus has killed 361 people in China so far. China’s National Health Commission said the number of infections had risen to 2,829, while suspected cases had surpassed 20,000.
The World Health Organization declared the coronavirus outbreak a global health emergency last week.
On Sunday morning, the Myanmar government took a chartered flight to evacuate 59 students stranded in the closed city of Wuhan to Mandalay.
On Friday, Myanmar denied China Southern Airlines a flight from Guangzhou with nearly everyone on board after one of the passengers was found to have flu-like symptoms similar to the coronavirus.
Myanmar was monitoring five suspected cases of the coronavirus as of Sunday afternoon, according to the country’s health ministry.
The latest case is a 29-year-old Chinese man in the country’s capital, Nay Pyi Taw, who was admitted to hospital with hyperthermia, cough and runny nose after returning from Guangzhou on January 31. He was referred to Capital General Hospital, where he is under observation in an isolation ward. A respiratory swab was collected from the man and sent to a laboratory.
As of Sunday, Myanmar had not reported any confirmed cases of coronavirus infection in the country.
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