Awareness Seminar: Capacity enhancement for Japanese tour operators

With support of ASEAN-Japan Center, the Ministry of Hotels and Tourism conducted the 2nd awareness seminar on capacity enhancement of Japan tour operators as part of implementing the National Activity Project-2022.

The opening of seminar was held at ShweNandaw Hotel in Bagan on Tuesday and Union Minister for Hotels and Tourism DrHtayAung gave an opening remark. In his address, the Union Minister said that the tourism industry in Myanmar has been resumed as the COVID-19 pandemic can be controlled significantly.

The program is annually conducted by the ASEAN-Japan center and the capacity building training of Japanese tour guides was conducted in 2020 and the Japanese food cooking training in 2021.In 2019, about 20 million Japanese tourists visited foreign countries, of which 5.6 million arrived in the ASEAN region.

Although the foreign market has suspended during pandemic, it is known that the number of outbound tourists from Japan has gradually increased every month this year for easing Japan's travel restrictions in 2022. In 2019, more than 100,000 Japanese tourists visited Myanmar.

This seminar is held to give better services to Japanese visitors through the friendship between people of Myanmar and Japan. The similar seminar was held in Nay Pyi Taw and such kind of seminar will be held in Shan State in the next month.Moreover, the tourism industry development programs including the 50th Anniversary of ASEAN-Japan Cooperation will be conducted in cooperation with ASEAN-Japan center. Later, the Secretary General of ASEAN-Japan Center (AJC) gave a speech and then officials from the AJC and experts conducted the relevant subjects.

A total of 60 attendees participated in the seminar and the 2nd day session will be held on 30th November. With the leadership of the World Trade Tourism Council (WTTC), the World Travel & Tourism Council Global Summit 2022 was held in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia on the same day. Union Minister U HtayAung and departmental officials participated in the conference via video conferencing. The summit is held under the theme “Travel for a Better Future”.