As the number of tourists coming to Myanmar has increased during the past few years, so too have the number of hotels. And it is not just hospitality businesses that are booming. Ambitious individuals looking to get in on the shared rental craze have begun listing their homes on sites such as Airbnb.
That could be set to change as landlords in Yangon will now face penalties if they rent rooms or apartments to foreigners holding a tourist visa, U Zaw Aye Maung, the military-appointed regional minister for immigration, explained to The Myanmar Times. He added that only permanent residents and foreigners holding business visas are allowed to rent apartments or houses within cities.
The rules are not new, by-laws written for Myanmar’s 1947 Immigration Act stipulate that foreign visitors on a tourist visa must stay in hotels, however, they had rarely been enforced since tourist arrivals to the country were nominal. Now with more visitors entering the country, the government plans on enforcing these rules.
“It is not a new law. It was enacted a long time ago,” U Zaw Aye Maung told the newspaper. “But the reason we are reminding people is that now more tourists are staying in houses and apartments. We can’t take responsibility for their security if they aren’t staying in a hotel.”
Despite the surge in the number of hotel rooms available in Yangon, many tourists are renting rooms or apartments from locals in order to save money. The problem has been an issue across the ASEAN as these room sharing websites are believed to be cutting into the profits of hotels.
“Hardly any real estate agents or home owners are interested in what kind of visa foreigners looking to rent are holding,” real estate consultant U Aung Min stated. “They want to rent to foreigners because of the higher fees.”
