ON THE IRRAWADDY RIVER, Myanmar — When Daniel and Susy Florens booked a
five-star honeymoon with stops in some of Asia’s premier luxury
destinations, Myanmar seemed like just another stop on the itinerary.
They had agreed to take a five-day cruise along the Irrawaddy River on
the recommendation of a trusted travel agent. But as their sailing date
neared, Mr. Florens, who owns electronics stores across Mexico, wondered
about Myanmar’s political situation and the standard of the cruise
ship’s accommodations.
“I thought I was coming to a place with a lot of soldiers in the
streets, and barricades,” he recalled. “And I imagined the ship was an
old boat in Louisiana.”
But the atmosphere in Myanmar’s cultural and business center, Yangon,
was welcoming, and the cruise ship was well appointed, with teak and
jade furnishings, modern amenities and a rooftop pool. Two nights into
the journey, Mr. Florens said he thought the service and accommodation
were on par with that of the five-star hotels where he and his wife had
stayed in Tokyo and Shanghai.
“I am going to tell my brother-in-law, ‘You know, you have to do this,”’
Mr. Florens said, sipping a lemon-grass-flavor iced tea on the pool
deck as the ship sailed past marshes and the occasional cluster of
riverside huts. His only complaint — and it was more of an afterthought —
was that the wireless Internet service was patchy.
Myanmar, once a pariah state that was ruled for decades by a repressive
military junta, is emerging from two years of landmark political and
economic liberalization. And even as ethnic and religious tensions
continue to smolder in its hinterlands, the country’s hospitality
industry is already scrambling to meet rising demand for hotels and
services.
Slightly more than one million international visitors arrived here last
year — about a third and a sixth of the numbers that traveled to
Cambodia and Vietnam, respectively — but the year-over-year growth rate
of nearly 30 percent was Southeast Asia’s fastest-rising, according to a
recent report by the Ministry of Hotels and Tourism in Myanmar.
And the country’s average hotel rate rose to $137 in 2012 from $66 in
2011, matching Cambodia’s 2012 hotel rate and exceeding those of
Thailand and Vietnam, according to data compiled by STR Global, a market
forecast company.
“It happened in a year and a half where suddenly the country was thrown
open, and everyone lifted their travel advisories not to go to Myanmar,”
said Steven Schipani, a tourism expert at the Asian Development Bank in
Bangkok, which, along with the Norwegian government, financed the
tourism ministry’s study. “Now, with the opening, it’s the hot new
destination.”
For now at least, river cruises capture only a small fraction of
Myanmar’s tourist arrivals — 14,653 people last year — but they cater to
high-end travelers who often spend thousands of dollars per person
during their stays.
River cruises have the advantage of sidestepping two of Myanmar’s major
tourism shortcomings: poor roads and a lack of upscale accommodation.
The country has just two hotels that meet international luxury
standards: The Governor’s Residence and The Strand, both in Yangon.
Part of the allure for some tourists is tracing the footsteps of the
British writers George Orwell and Rudyard Kipling, said Bill Barnett,
the managing director of C9 Hotelworks, a Thailand-based hospitality
consultancy.
Another, he added, is the country’s comparatively limited development in
comparison to that of its Southeast Asian neighbors.
“Myanmar is a great brand,” Mr. Barnett said. “It’s an exotic destination — people want to see it.”
Some operators market cruises in this country, formerly known as Burma,
as nostalgic throwbacks to its British colonial past.
Mr. Florens and Mrs. Romano Florens, the Mexican newlyweds, cruised
between the cities of Bagan and Mandalay on a ship that takes its name —
The Road to Mandalay — from a famous Kipling poem. The ship, operated
by the London-based luxury hotel company Orient-Express, traveled the
Rhine River in Germany before it began sailing here in 1995.
A copy of the poem and some vintage nautical maps hang on the corridor
walls, and the dining room’s lamps and wood furnishings convey a vintage
air. At one point in the cruise, the ship’s hotel manager, Steve Locke,
pointed to a village on the riverbank where Burmese and British troops
in 1826 formally ended the first Anglo-Burmese war.
The historical references were aided by the scenery: Aside from bridges
and some telephone wires, the view from the boat was largely of empty
marshes, rudimentary villages and the occasional gold-leafed Buddhist
pagoda. An observer could easily wonder whether it had looked the same
in the 1800s.
On the cruise’s third day, Mr. Locke waved across the river at a ship
passing in the other direction. The Orcaella, which Orient-Express
launched in July for journeys of seven and 11 nights along the Irrawaddy
and nearby Chindwin River, cruises from Yangon to remote destinations
near the Myanmar-India border.
The Orcaella is a response to what Eddie Teh, the company’s general
manager for Myanmar cruises, called a dramatic increase in demand for
river cruising in the country since 2011. He said that most guests came
from the United States but that in the last two years, the number of
travelers from Southeast Asia — now its second-largest market — had
increased.
Prices on the Road to Mandalay, which can accommodate 82 passengers,
begin at $2,520 per person for three-night cruises and $4,030 for 11
nights, while the Orcaella starts at $5,040 for seven nights and $5,610
for 11 nights. Domestic transfers are included in the fares.
Orient-Express is among the early pioneers of Myanmar river cruising,
but it increasingly faces competition from rivals offering river
journeys at similar or cheaper fares. For example, two Yangon-based
companies, Amara Group and the Ayravata Cruise Co., operate two cruise
ships each. And Singapore-based Pandaw Cruises, founded in the mid-1990s
by a historian from Scotland, has six ships sailing in Myanmar and four
in Cambodia and Vietnam.
Sven Zika, Pandaw’s sales and marketing manager, said the company
planned to add three new ships in Myanmar by March 2014 as a way of
serving increasing demand. He said the company’s clients continued to be
primarily from the United States, Britain and Australia, adding that
Burmese travelers were not a major part of the market.
The Swiss company Thurgau Travel has introduced two Myanmar river
cruisers since 2010, said Karl Pauli, the head of the company’s Myanmar
cruises. Mr. Pauli added that, despite a regular seasonal dip in tourist
arrivals during the summer months, the ships’ average annual occupancy
rate was about 90 percent, and most guests were Swiss.
River cruising, however, doesn’t appeal to all high-end travelers who
visit Myanmar seeking culture and history, for the simple reason that
cruise boats limit the possibilities for overland exploration, said
Willem Niemeijer, the chief executive of Thailand-based Khiri Travel
Group, which organizes itineraries across Southeast Asia.
Cruising can be pleasant, but it is questionable whether it is an
authentic way to see Myanmar and interact with local communities, Mr.
Niemeijer added. “I think not — basically you’re in a capsule,” he said.
On the Orient-Express’s Mandalay cruise, the boat’s approximately 20
guests came from countries including Japan, Australia, Britain, Germany
and the United States. A few said they recognized the limitations of
cruising but had decided the trip would offer a pleasant introduction to
a country they had only read about.
Gianluca Ciampi and Sofia Leonardi, a couple from Rome on their
honeymoon, said they typically traveled independently. But it was their
first time in Myanmar, and they wanted to relax completely.
“It’s a bubble, but it is beautiful,” said Mr. Ciampi, a lawyer who
spent part of the cruise sunbathing on the pool deck and reading George
Orwell.
The cruise did include stops, like the first day’s excursion to Bagan,
one of Myanmar’s most popular tourist attractions, where temples dating
from the 11th century reflect the country’s Buddhist heritage.
The Florenses were thrilled by the tour, noting with surprise how many
of the sites were much less crowded than they had expected. “It’s like
our private place,” Mr. Florens said, surrounded by restored brick
temples.
On a tour of a fruit-and-vegetable market, they stopped to inspect the
pineapples, judging them sweeter than in Mexico. And in a dusty village,
they marveled at how some local women were carrying such large water
buckets on shoulder-mounted slings. Mrs. Romano Florens remarked in
Spanish that one woman’s load looked as heavy as a suitcase.
After stopping to photograph a group of monks in red robes, the couple
returned to the Irrawady’s banks to find some local people watching
their every movement.
“The people are looking at us,” Mrs. Romano Florens said.
Her husband took her hand. “They’ve never seen such a beautiful woman as you, mi amor,” he said.
source: New York Times
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