US embassy cable - 03RANGOON165

UNCLAS RANGOON 000165 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SENSITIVE 
 
STATE FOR EAP/BCLTV, EB, CA 
COMMERCE FOR ITA JEAN KELLY 
TREASURY FOR OASIA JEFF NEIL 
USPACOM FOR FPA 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: EIND, CASC, ECON, BM, Economy 
SUBJECT: BURMA'S TOURIST SECTOR: LIES, DAMN LIES, AND 
STATISTICS 
 
1. (SBU) Summary: Can there really have been 500,000 foreign 
tourists, including 15,000 Americans, in Burma last year? 
Despite the GOB's triumphant claims, we think not.  Evidence 
from the local tourism industry, the Embassy's Consular 
Section, and a measure of plain common sense, suggest a much 
smaller number of U.S. tourists.  End summary. 
 
Americans Flocking to Burma? 
 
2. (U) The Burmese Ministry of Hotels and Tourism (MOHT) 
recently trumpeted a victory for the 2002 tourist season. 
The country, so the Ministry claimed, finally achieved the 
long sought after goal of 500,000 foreign visitors.  Because 
of severe shortages of flight capacity, and the very limited 
tourist season, we are dubious of the overall numbers. 
However, even if we take them at face value they are not as 
impressive as they initially seem.  According to MOHT 
accounts, there were 270,000 entries by travelers from China, 
Thailand, Laos, and India who crossed the border by land for 
a day or two.  Of the remaining 230,000 visitors, 218,000 
came by air from other Asian countries (including 23,000 from 
Taiwan and 21,000 from Japan). 
 
3. (U) The Ministry also took much pleasure in announcing an 
alleged increase in U.S. visitors to Burma.  One of the 
regime's newspapers, The Myanmar Times, reported, 
"Surprisingly give (sic) the U.S. Government's harsh stance 
on Myanmar; it was American tourists who visited most 
frequently from the western nations" (about 14,500 entries in 
2002 according to the MOHT).  Though this number is still 
less than 3 percent of all purported visitors to Burma, it 
would indicate a sharp increase in U.S. tourism to Burma over 
the last three years. 
 
Wishful Thinking 
 
4. (SBU) Though we have no way to conclusively verify or 
disprove the MOHT's claims, we are very skeptical.  Tourism 
from Europe may have increased, due to expanded flight 
capacity in 2002 from Italy and Austria.  However, tourism 
industry sources here say that the Burmese government has 
been known to inflate the number of western tourist entries 
for reasons of national pride and in order to bolster claims 
of respectability.  Another possibility is that the MOHT 
statistics were taken wholesale from the Immigration Service 
with no effort to break them down by the visitors' status or 
length of stay.  Therefore U.S. passport holders who are 
long-term residents of Burma would be counted as one 
"visitor" each time they re-entered the country. 
 
5. (SBU) The Embassy's consular statistics tend to bear out 
these assumptions.  Only a couple of hundred U.S. citizens 
registered at the Embassy in 2002 (a small percentage of the 
alleged 14,500 at a time when U.S. travelers are eager to 
register when they travel abroad).  In 2002 there was only a 
single death of a U.S. citizen tourist, no arrests of U.S. 
tourists, about 20 welfare/whereabouts cases involving 
short-term U.S. visitors, and only four U.S. tourists seeking 
a replacement passport.  If the 14,500 number were accurate, 
these low consular data would make Burma a statistical 
anomaly in the consular world. 
 
How Many Then? 
 
6. (SBU) The accurate number of U.S. tourists, and overall 
visitors to Burma, is impossible to know.  For evacuation 
purposes, the Embassy recently made a very generous estimate 
of 10,000 U.S. tourists in Burma during 2002.  Anecdotal 
evidence from hoteliers and travel agents in Rangoon suggests 
an even lower figure of around 7,000 or 8,000.  Whatever the 
true number of tourists, it is even less important than the 
small number the GOB claims.  In any case, the plain fact is 
that U.S. tourism contributes very little to the Burmese 
economy. 
Martinez