With the current relaxation of the restrictions posed on Myanmar, a lot of tourists and business people come in. More are expected every day. As I mentioned in a previous post, hotel prices are sky-rocketing and several big hotels refuse to sign deals with travel agencies at the moment.
I knew all this,. I also knew a contract was cancelled by a big hotel less than a month after it was signed. Still, I was extremely surprised when a colleague told me today about her dealings with one of the hotels. She and her soon-to-be husband have arranged their wedding reception in this hotel. Everything has already been planned for a few months and they have paid half the price already as deposit.
Can you imagine her surprise when she got a phone call from that hotel earlier today telling her that the price of the reception has gone up by 50%?
She told me that now no hotel wants to have fixed prices and they all put in a little clause about the chance that prices may be reviewed. But 50% extra!! Absolutely preposterous!
They're not sure what to do. The wedding is in a week....
Some good news to though. The latest information is that from June 1 it is possible to get a visa-on-arrival in Yangon for a 70 day business visa. Still, all the paperwork needs to be in order and you need to have a clear background, whatever that means....
Hopefully the 6-month visa will soon also mean a 6-months stay permit. Now, you can have a 6-month visa (business) and still need to leave the country every 10 weeks. Extremely annoying and unnecessary. With the visa-on-arrival slowly being reintroduced, there might be changes on the duration of stay as well..
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