Economy, Tourism

The tourism industry in Myanmar has attracted funds from investors in volume second only to oil exploration. Investors from Thailand and Singapore are constructing world-class hotels and restoring airline connections. In 1989 the government loosened visa restrictions, allowing tourists on package tours to stay in the country for up to two weeks. However, the government restricts tourists to officially approved sites. In 2000, 208,000 tourists visited Myanmar, a substantial increase over the annual number of tourists that visited in the years before the 1988 rebellion. Although tourism is Myanmar’s leading source of foreign exchange, the political climate in the country has hindered the exploitation of Myanmar’s tourism potential.