In article
@dante65.u.washington.edu>, burma@u.washington.edu says...
> It is estimated that Burma receives half a million visitors a year of whom
> just 6,000-8,000 are British. These visitors annually raise around £25
> million in foreign currency for the regime from entry certificates alone.
As usual the Burma Action group posts inaccurate information. The number
of yearly visitors is around 100000, not 500000.
See
http://www.irrawaddy.org/database/2002/vol10.3/business.html
Quoting (April 2002):
"Tourist Numbers Tumble
The total number of tourists to Burma dropped by nearly 50% last year,
according to official statistics. During 2001 only 119,027 tourists
visited Burma, down from 234,900 in 2000. In comparison, neighboring
Thailand had over 10 million visitors last year. The drastic drop was
attributed to a decreased number of cross-border tourists. "
In other words Myanmar receives only 1% of the tourists which Thaikand
receives - that's peanuts.
Even assuming that all those 100000 tourists purchase $200 in FECs (many
don't, many are on packages and many are cross-border tourists), that
yields $20 million, of which the government pockets 10%, that is $2
million. Again peanuts.
--
Alfred Molon
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