Two thousand and four hundred acres of land have been bought for a hotel zone project in Mandalay and negotiations with farmers have been continuing to acquire additional land. About 250,000 visitors came to Mandalay in 2014. This year, about 200,000 visitors have come till September. The government expects the figure to cross 300,000 at the end of 2015. The number of hotels in Mandalay has grown to 164 hotels with 6,671 rooms as of September this year. According to the data of Ministry of Hotels and Tourism, for 2017- 2018 fiscal year, there will be 200 hotels and over 10,000 hotel rooms in Mandalay. In addition to Mandalay, another hotel zone project is being initiated near Kyaikhtiyo (Golden Rock) pagoda, Mon State as the current numbers of hotel rooms are insufficient to cater for the visitors.
Than Shwe, vice chairman of the Myanmar Hotelier Association said that there are 19 hotel zones in Myanmar, 11 of them have been built and the rest are ongoing and the Association has also been putting efforts into expanding the completed hotel zones. Hotel Zone projects usually face with alleged land grabbing although the Association denies these allegations. Yan Win, chairman of this Association said, “ We are negotiating with the farmers to buy their land for the hotel zone. We already have formed a Tadar Oo Hotel Zone Public Company to implement this project.” In this hotel zone project, hotels, houses, shops and restaurants will be included in addition to the hotels.
