Thousands of domestic visitors traveled to the ancient city of Bagan in Mandalay Region for the inaugural Sky Lantern Festival, held from Oct. 25-27 across the UNESCO World Heritage site.
Organized by the regime’s Directorate of Hotels and Tourism to promote travel in the historic zone, the three-day event coincided with Thadingyut—Myanmar’s traditional Festival of Lights marking the end of Buddhist Lent.
The festivities featured the nightly release of approximately 1,000 sky lanterns alongside traditional oil-lamp offering ceremonies across Bagan’s centuries-old pagodas.
While local hoteliers and tour operators reported a short-term boost in trade during the long holiday weekend, industry workers emphasized that visitor numbers outside major public holidays remain severely depressed.
The broader hospitality sector continues to struggle under the weight of regional armed conflict, rising travel costs, and an overall collapse in foreign tourism.
Across Myanmar, the Full Moon Day of Thadingyut was observed with major devotional events, including large-scale oil-lamp lightings at Yangon’s Shwedagon Pagoda and in the Karen State capital of Hpa-An, as families illuminated homes and pagodas to pay homage to elders.
The celebrations drew formal greetings from Western diplomatic missions in Myanmar, including the embassies of the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia.
However, the cultural festivities unfolded against the backdrop of an acute nationwide socioeconomic crisis. More than five years after the February 1, 2021 military coup, a recent United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) assessment revealed that over 37 million people—representing 68 per cent of Myanmar’s population—are living in multidimensional poverty or face the immediate risk of falling into it.
Despite persistent power outages, inflation, and widespread instability, communities throughout the country continued to observe the sacred holiday as an enduring symbol of spiritual renewal.
