A private travel company has introduced an online visa on arrival service system in Myanmar, designed to expedite arrival visa and other services for the promotion of the country's tourism industry, the state newspaper New Light of Myanmar reported Friday.

As part of Myanmar's plan to introduce a 100-percent visa-on-arrival system for the promotion, the Diamond Palace and Travel and Tour Co. Ltd will practise the system with the permission of the Ministry of Hotels and Tourism, the report said.

The visa-on-arrival system will be applicable to international visitors with those of some countries be covered in the pilot phase, other report said.

At present, international travelers applying entry visas into Myanmar through Myanmar embassies abroad have to take four days in Beijing, 24 hours in Jakarta, five days in Paris and Tokyo, three days in London and two days in Bangkok and Singapore, according to the Myanmar Foreign Ministry earlier.

Domestic travel and tour companies are set to apply for their customers entry visas 15 days in advance with the presentation of their personal data.

Myanmar's tourism business started to drop near the end of 2007and continued in 2008 during which deadly cyclone Nargis was experienced and the global financial crisis, which sparked in late2008, also delayed Myanmar's tourism development.

The tourism authorities have stressed the need to promote the country's international tourism market for the revival of its tourism industry.

According to official statistics, tourist arrivals in Myanmar in 2008 totaled over 260,000.

(Xinhua News Agency June 12, 2009)