A MASTER plan to develop long-term strategies for developing tourism in the Greater Mekong Sub-region will be presented to its six member countries by the end of May, it was announced in Yangon last week.

The announcement came at a national workshop held at Traders hotel on February 7, the second to be held in Myanmar to consider the plan.

The workshop was attended by 60 people, including representatives of the ministries of Hotels and Tourism, Culture, Immigration, Finance and Revenue, Labour, Transport and Foreign Affairs, and from airlines, hotels and travel agencies.

The plan aims to attract more than 35 million tourists a year to the GMS countries by 2010 and more than 47 million by 2015.

The plan envisages that Myanmar will attract 1.5 million tourists a year by 2010 and 2.4 million by 2015.

Tourism arrivals in the region totalled about 15.2 million in 2003, of which Myanmar accounted for about 600,000 foreign visitors.

Under the seven-month project, launched last November, the workshops are being held in all six GMS countries: Myanmar, Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos and China’s Yunnan Province.

Each country holds two workshops: the first to consider ideas and the second to propose a strategy for the entire region.

The six countries will meet early next month at a venue yet to be decided to discuss a draft master plan.

“The aim of the project is to prepare a long-term program of promoting GMS sectors [countries] as a single destination,” Mr Ludwig Rieder, the team leader of the GMS Tourism Strategy Project, told Myanmar Times on the sidelines of the workshop.

The team comprises six experts in tourism related issues, ranging from economics to infrastructure and natural and cultural heritage management.

One of the subjects discussed at the workshop was a single entry visa for the six GMS regions.

“Tourism at the sub-region level between six countries is about moving to one another. And if you want to create a tourist route on destinations, you have to make it easy for tourists to move,” Mr Rieder said.

Upgrading infrastructure would also make it easier to travel throughout the GMS, said Mr Rieder.

“Our project is focusing on improving infrastructure connecting both sides of borders,” he said.

Mr Rieder said private sector cooperation would be essential for the success of the master plan.

“It is very important to get the private sector involved. First of all, you get larger resources, greater interest and more effectiveness. And in many countries, the private sector builds the infrastructure,” he said.

Mr Rieder said the project will promote heritage destinations in the six regions as part of a ‘Jewels of the Mekong’ campaign. They are Bagan in Myanmar, Hue in Vietnam, Luang Prabang in Laos, Angkor Wat in Cambodia, Sukhothai in Thailand and Lijiang in Yunnan Province.

The team’s natural and cultural heritage specialist, Dr Heather Peters, said preserving heritage sites was essential to attract tourists.

Dr Peters said the plan will include suggestions for managing the preservation of heritage sites.