Thingyan Water Festival, a public holiday, is a Buddhist festival of the celebration of the Burmese New Year in Myanmar. It will be held between 13 and 16 of April this year. The dates of the Thingyan Festival are calculated according to the Burmese calendar.
In recent years Myanmar holiday makers prefer foreign holidays because a local trip costs as much as a foreign one or even more. The Rakhine crisis, as a result of which one hundred thousand Buddhists and Muslims were displaces due to the violence between them, many locals choose foreign countries for their holidays, choosing mostly destinations in Southeast Asia.
At the same time less foreign travellers come to Myanmar on river cruises and hot air balloon rides. Tour operators fear the situation will continue until there is political instability. The Ministry of Hotel and Tourism reports that 324,000 international travellers arrived in Myanmar in January, 136,000 arrived with visas, the rest of them were day-return travellers.
Thingyan Stimulates Myanmar Holiday Makers Travelling Abroad
News in Asia
Tour operators in Myanmar state a 15 per cent increase of local holiday-makers who will go abroad during Thingyan in comparison with the previous year. They will visit Vietnam, Thailand and other Asian countries as well as Europe.