Crackdown hits Myanmar tourism

YANGON (Reuters) - Last month's pro-democracy protests in Myanmar and the military junta's ruthless and bloody crackdown have hit tourism hard, with some hotels slashing prices by 80 percent to try to attract visitors, industry insiders said.

"There has been a steep drop in foreign arrivals -- both businessmen and tourists -- since the protests reached a climax in the last week of September," a manager at a Yangon-based travel agency said on Wednesday.

Most hotels had more than halved their rates, the manager said, but occupancy levels were below break-even point, a reflection of the international outrage at last month's crackdown on monks and civilians in which at least 10 people were killed.

According to the Myanmar Times, a semi-official business weekly, the up-market Savoy Hotel has axed its prices to just $20 a night compared to a normal high season rate of $110.

"Business has been very bad. Most of us have been out of job for weeks," said one English-speaking tour guide -- one of more than 4,000 licensed in the former Burma, under military rule for the last 45 years.

"It is not just because of the seasonal factor. We had a lot of cancellations. A number of clients failed to show up."

Even before the unrest, tourism was in a parlous state, a reflection of the dire economy and the calls by many, including detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, for people to stay away to keep tourist dollars out of the generals' pockets.

Myanmar says it had 192,000 tourists in the year to March 2007. By contrast, neighboring Thailand expects around 13 million foreign visitors this year, and even war-scarred Cambodia is aiming for 2 million.

Airlines have also been hit by the protests and the army's ruthless response, pictures of which were beamed around the world within minutes, in large part due to advances in technology since the last major pro-democracy uprising in 1988.

Then as many as 3,000 people are thought to have died.

Domestic flight schedules had to be altered because of curfews imposed on Yangon and Mandalay, the two main cities, and even unaffected flights were half empty.

One businessman who flew in from Singapore last week on an Air Bagan Airbus capable of carrying more than 200 passengers said there were only about two dozen people on board. Air Bagan is owned by Tay Za, a tycoon known to be close to the junta.

Making matters worse, the generals have just decreed that from October 15, domestic airlines will have to fly daily to Naypyidaw, their half-built and sparsely populated new capital 240 miles north of Yangon -- even if the planes are empty.

"It will make losses even bigger since these airlines are not commercially viable at present," one travel agent said.