Myanmar will take part in an international tourism exhibition to be held in Berlin, Germany, next month with the aim to absorb more world tourist arrivals in the country, sources with the Myanmar Tourism Promotion Board ( MTPB) said on Tuesday.

The Internationale Tourismus-Borse(ITB)-2006, which represents the world's biggest tour show, is scheduled for March 8-12.

A 50-member delegation representing some domestic airlines, hotels and tour operators will display their services at the Myanmar booth at the Messe Berlin Exhibition Center, the MTPB said.

Hoteliers here noted that the participation of Myanmar in the Berlin show will create opportunity to enable the country better known to the world and attract increased number of tourist arrivals through introduction of more interested tourism destinations.

According to the tourism ministry's statistics, more than 660, 000 foreign tourists traveled by air to Myanmar in 2005, slightly up from about 657,000 in 2004 in spite of being impacted by bird flu globally. During the year, earning through tourism in the country also rose to 153 million US dollars, up 17 million from the previous year.

Official figures also show that there are 596 hotels, motels and guest houses in Myanmar providing a total of over 18,500 rooms. The number of travel agencies in operation stands over 500.

More figures reveal that contracted foreign investment in the sector of hotels and tourism has so far amounted to 1.06 billion dollars since Myanmar started to open to such investment in late 1988. Of the investment, that in hotel projects amounted to over 580 million dollars.

Source: Xinhua