Myanmar or Burma: Should You Visit or Boycott?
“Discover Myanmar holidays and travel ideas. It’s a new exciting time for this beautiful Asian land and immense culture that is just waiting to be shared and explored with the whole world” – so says the slogan on the Myanmar Tourism website in October 2022. What it doesn’t mention is that the military junta is at war with its own people and almost every country around the world is advising its citizens not to travel to Myanmar.
Back in 2019, I wrote the original version of this article arguing in favour of NOT boycotting the country because of the benefits that tourism income provides to those working in that sector. That article still appears below for reference, but things have changed since 2019, notably the bloody and illegal overthrow of the democratically elected government by the Myanmar military and the detention of Aung Suu Kyi in February 2021.
Since then, over 2,000 Burmese citizens have been killed by their own soldiers, more than 15,000 activists, journalists and lawmakers have been arrested by the junta, 12,000 are still in jail, four have been executed after sham trials held in secret, and another 77 have been sentenced to death.
Every day there are skirmishes in different parts of the country between the military and opposition forces and ethnic rebel groups. The military is ruling the country ruthlessly and cruelly and showing little regard to the welfare of the general population. Sanctions imposed have driven the economy into the ground.
Anti-coup protestors set fire on a road in Yangon in March 2021. Image: © Maung Nyan
Consequently, the military is now trying to entice tourists back to the country in order to secure foreign exchange income. It’s using the hashtag #MyanmarBeEnchanted to promote travel to the country on social media and is attempting to pay travel magazines to publish articles about the beautiful places that can be visited in Myanmar without mentioning the perilous political situation in the country.
Most magazines are refusing to publish such articles as such payments can only be viewed as blood money, but some publications like Vacations & Travel (a quarterly Australian travel magazine) have accepted payment to promote the country, and Thailand’s Channel 5 television, which is owned by the Royal Thai Army, is screening a series of travel programmes about Myanmar’s tourist attractions.
Vacations & Travel says on its website that it “uses an exclusive selection of international freelance journalists and photographers to fill our pages” and has a “commitment to fostering and supporting fine journalistic talent.” Yet every independent journalist in Myanmar has either been jailed, silenced, or forced to leave the country.
Magazines that currently promote travel to Myanmar do their readers a disservice because anyone travelling to Myanmar currently could be subject to arbitrary detention for the slightest misstep. The US State Department has Myanmar under a “Do Not Visit” alert and notes that “Burma is facing a grave political, economic, human rights and humanitarian crisis due to a brutal crackdown by a powerful military that acts with impunity”.
An acknowledgement on the Vacations & Travel website that their article was produced “in partnership” with Tourism Myanmar, meaning the magazine was paid by the military junta to publish it.
Similarly, the Australian Government’s Smart Traveller website has Myanmar under a “Do Not Travel” alert advising: “Violence, including explosions and attacks, can occur anywhere and at any time, including in Yangon”, and the British Government’s Foreign Office issues a warning that the security situation in Myanmar is unpredictable and liable to change without notice. Most European governments have issued similar warnings to their citizens.
As I said in my original article, Myanmar is a wonderful country that I love to visit, but at the present time we should heed government warnings and not attempt travel to the country. Hopefully one day in the not-too-distant future a democratically elected government will be restored in Myanmar, and we can return, but sadly I fear that’s going to be many years away given the lack of action in strengthening sanctions against the military junta by the international community.
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The original version of this article (below) was published prior to the brutal military coup in February 2021. The country is still in a state of armed conflict and civil unrest. It is currently not safe to travel to Myanmar. Foreigners have been arbitrarily detained by the military dictatorship and activists have been executed.
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For many years western governments have been urging travellers to boycott Burma, or Myanmar as it is now known, because of atrocities allegedly carried out by the Burmese junta, including the imprisonment of Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi.
After the release of Suu Kyi in 2010 and her winning of a seat in parliament in 2012, the calls for tourism boycotts lessened, but they have grown again in recent years following Suu Kyi’s siding with the military over the country’s persecution of the Muslim Rohingya.
As a result, many tour operators are still boycotting Myanmar and some NGOs and travel bloggers are actively encouraging boycotts on the basis that tourism dollars benefit the government over which the military still has a high degree of influence.
But on the other hand, more than 4 million tourists are expected to visit Myanmar in 2019, so it no longer appears that many travellers are heeding the boycott calls.
The 1.2 km U Bein teak bridge near Mandalay. Image: Karl Ferdinand
Should you visit or should you boycott? Before answering that question, let me tell you a little about myself. I have no connection with Myanmar other than the fact that it’s a country that I’ve visited many times and rate as my favourite destination in Southeast Asia.
Although we live in Australia now, nearly all of my family was born in Greece, so we used to visit our extended family there most summers (when it was winter in Melbourne). My parents never liked long flights, so we made it a point of stopping over in Southeast Asia on most of our trips.
I loved Myanmar from the first time I visited it, and have been back many times for longer stays. I’ve taken my wife and kids there too, and they also rate it as one of their favourite destinations outside of Australia.
In the years prior to 2010 I took particular note of the calls for boycotts, because they were especially strong during that period. I read a lot of arguments for and against the boycotts and eventually came to the conclusion that boycotts were not an effective way of dealing with the situation in Myanmar – a conclusion that is shared by the majority of Myanmar observers these days.
A fisherman on Myanmar’s famed Inle Lake. Image: Pierre-Yves Guihéneuf
This article by one of the Matador Network’s writers points out that violence towards Rohingya has been ongoing for 50 years, and that pressure by western governments which resulted in minimal tourism during much of that period had no impact whatsoever on the attitude of the military towards ethnic minorities.
In fact, she argues that a successful travel boycott would only isolate the country and make the military less accountable for what has been happening in that region. Another travel writer whose blog I follow from time to time makes much the same argument, pointing out also that it is the local people who suffer from travel boycotts.
Those employed in the tourism industry, those who earn their keep by transporting tourists around the country, those who serve meals in restaurants and those who sell t-shirts and souvenirs from stalls on the street would all be impacted by a travel boycott far more than the country’s military machine.
Yes, responding to a boycott call may make you feel good from a moral perspective, and enable you to tell friends and colleagues about how you are taking a stand on a human rights issue, but the governments of countries like China and Saudi Arabia engage in human rights abuses on a far greater scale than Myanmar, but you rarely hear people calling for boycotts on travel to China and Saudi Arabia.
Old and new structures in downtown Yangon. Image: Ye Naing Oo
My own Australian government (although I’m Greek by birth, I have been an Australian citizen since childhood) doesn’t specifically recommend boycotting anymore, but it does discourage travel to Myanmar citing numerous safety and health issues.
It describes Myanmar as a country in which a high degree of caution has to be exercised, and recommends several parts of the country to which visitors should not travel. Last month a foreign tourist was killed by a landmine in the northern part of Shan State, so there are certainly areas that should be avoided.
But if you stick to the four main tourist regions – Yangon, Inle Lake, Mandalay and Bagan – it’s highly unlikely that you will run into trouble. In fact, in my experience, I have felt safer in all of those places than I have in many other parts of Southeast Asia.
In general, the Burmese people are extremely friendly, very honest and will go out of their way to ensure that visitors have an enjoyable experience whilst in their country.
A young Burmese woman with traditional thanaka face paint. Image: Qamera
Of course, in Yangon, which was the capital until 2006 when it was moved to Naypyitaw, you’ll come across a few scam artists and hear about petty crime, just like you will in any major Asian city, but statistics show that there’s actually a much lower rate of crime in Yangon than in most other cities of that size in Southeast Asia.
I’ve never felt unsafe walking the streets of Yangon, but naturally you should avoid its backstreets at night as you would in any other big city of the world.
I love to visit the Shwedagon Pagoda when I’m in Yangon. I do nothing but people-watch and soak up the transcendental atmosphere of the temple. I’m not Buddhist, but it’s the one place in the world that keeps drawing me back because I feel something spiritual inside me every time I am there.
The beautiful Shwedagon Pagoda in Yangon. Image: Luis Valiente
And there’s probably nowhere else in the region where I feel so relaxed as when I am paddling a wooden boat on the smooth waters of Inle Lake and watching the villagers going about their daily business. It drives home to me just how less stressful a simple lifestyle can be.
But what makes Myanmar really special for me is Bagan. More than two decades ago I went there for the first time and took a hot-air balloon ride over the temples at sunrise. It was a magical experience. Drifting along a few hundred feet above the ground with hundreds of ancient temples stretching across the plains as far as the eye could see.
It was, and still is, my number one rated travel experience in the world. I’ve done it three times now. Back when I did my first balloon flight at Bagan there was just one balloon operating. Now there are more than a dozen as thousands of tourists come to Bagan every year to experience a sunrise hot-air balloon flight.
The demand for balloon flights at Bagan has unfortunately driven prices up to a level that’s now almost unaffordable – US$350-450 for a 45 mins flight. That’s double the price for longer flights in other popular ballooning locations around the world.
Sunrise on a misty morning at Bagan. Image: Charlie Costello
So these days when I visit Bagan I just enjoy the absolutely spectacular sight of all the balloons in the sky as the sun rises behind the temples. Although I expect one day I might dig deep and be tempted to part with the cash needed to take one more ride in the air over Bagan.
Myanmar is a wonderful country. For me it’s such a contrast to both Australia and Greece, and I keep going back there because I love the people, the food and the scenery. It offers great value for money too (aside from the balloon flights).
It’s not yet over-run with overseas visitors, but at the rate that tourists from mainland China are arriving, it won’t be long before the experiences that I’ve been enjoying for the past three decades or so will no longer exist.
If you heed the calls to boycott travel to the country, you won’t individually make any difference at all to the political situation in Myanmar because those Chinese tourists certainly won’t be boycotting it. And you’ll be missing out on some memorable travel experiences that may not be around for too many more years.
Header image: © R. Bociaga
