Tourists normally avoid authoritarian nations such as Myanmar, but industry officials say their ideas — and their money ‒ could be key to bringing down repressive regimes.
”It is complicated to know whether to travel to countries that don’t share our values, but if we only travelled to democracies our itineraries would be limited,” said Francesco Frangialli, the secretary general of the World Tourism Organisation, after wrapping up a two-day conference on revitalising tourism in Asia.
”Increased tourism [to a destination] means an increased freedom of commerce and, potentially, of people. If a country succeeds like its neighbours, it will benefit like its neighbors — not just financially but with a changed politics and culture.”
The junta’s human rights record and its recent re-arrest of Nobel laureate and democracy activist Aung San Suu Kyi have helped keep Myanmar off the list of Asian tourist destinations despite a wealth of architectural, cultural and natural attractions.
”Tourism is culture and shopping, not politics; most people who come to Myanmar are not politicians and most people who talk about Myanmar talk without going there,” Brigadier General Aye Myint Kyu, Myanmar’s deputy minister of hotels and tourism, said on Wednesday.
”Aung San Suu Kyi is not a talking point of tourism; the EU [European Union] is interested in Aung San Suu Kyi but in our country she is not interesting.”
Britain issued a strong warning on Monday to travel firms operating in South-east Asia to consider pulling out of Myanmar, and US lawmakers voted overwhelmingly on Tuesday to join the European Union and Canada in imposing economic sanctions on the country formerly known as Burma.
Japan, the largest donor of foreign aid to Myanmar until it suspended contributions in the furor over Aung San Suu Kyi’s detention, maintains it is important to keep politics out of tourism, said director of tourism policy, Satoru Kanazawa.
”The situation in Myanmar is not bad enough for us to wield our influence. In the end, no matter what government is in place, exchanges between people are good.”
Such Japanese tolerance extends even to old adversary China, but comes to a dead stop with North Korea.
”Even though China is a communist dictatorship and we do not agree, we respect the Chinese choice and encourage tourists to go there because that will help with understanding” the acrimony between the two nations, Kanazawa said.
”But while we do not like to use power to discourage people to visit countries for political reasons, North Korea kidnapped our people and tourism there will give [North Korean President] Kim [Jong Il] money to build weapons.”
The world needs only to look at the long-standing US embargo against Cuba to see how preventing tourism can backfire and help maintain an oppressive government, said Peter de Jong, president of the Pacific Asia Travel Association.
”If the US had been smart and allowed tourism into Cuba sooner, the situation would be a lot different,” de Jong said.
”Nothing changes a country like tourism.”
It was tourism, Frangialli said, that helped usher in the free market democracy that brought an end in 1975 to the dictatorship of Francisco Franco in Spain.
”Contact with foreigners transformed Spain; when French women lay on the beach in their bathing suits it showed Spanish women that they could too,” he said.
”I understand that Aung San Suu Kyi may not like it, but tourism may be a profound factor in laying the ground for democracy.” – Sapa-AFP