Translated By:Kyaw Kyaw Linn

Written By : Yin Yin Hla

Ministry of Hotels and Tourism(MOHT) and Union of Myanmar Travel Association(UMTA) responded to Mr. Brandon Thompson — a guest contributor at Travel Weekly Asia, whose article in the Travel Weekly Asia journal distributed the recent ATF 2019 held in Vietnam, had ranked Myanmar as 4th of top 5 most dangerous countries in APAC region in 2019 — to come and visit Myanmar in person and write after seeing the actual situation.

Brandon Thompson is the Managing Director of a global security consultancy firm “Drum Cussac”. U Hla Myint, the Director at the Department of Regional and International Cooperation (Hotels & Tourism), said to Travelling Journal, ” Myanmar is peaceful and safe. Guest entry this year is more than last year. We responded to him to come to Myanmar for learning more instead of writing untrue facts”.

U Hla Myint said he had explained to International media at ASEAN Tourism Forum (ATF 2019), that the author of the article is just aiming to discredit Myanmar with uncollaborated data. Also U Hla Myint added, “UMTA emailed Mr. Thompson with some questions — from where did he get the data? who were his sources? can they be reliable to make an assessment?” This baseless news article had saddened and displeased Myanmar people and all stakeholders in tourism field. Lan Jarrett Not Lan, editor-at-large of Travel Weekly Asia, apologized for it and replied that they will listen to what we said and follow up with some suggestions, said U Thet Lwin Toh, Chairman of UMTA.

Top 5 most dangerous countries in APAC 2019, according to Travel Weekly Asia issued by Singapore-based Northstar Travel Group; (1) Afghanistan (2) Pakistan (3) Papua New Guinea (4) Myanmar (5) Bangladesh.

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