"Myanmar has endured a lot in recent history. A brutal military dictatorship, which transformed its robust postcolonial economy into one of Asia’s weakest and set in motion the ongoing persecution of the Rohingya Muslims; the “8888 uprising”, a pro-democracy movement that catapulted the National League for Democracy (NLD), the political party led by Aung San Suu Kyi, into the spotlight but ultimately ended in a bloody coup, restoring isolationist military rule; and a subsequent transition towards civil authority – or something resembling democracy – with the government led by the NLD, although 25 per cent of seats in parliament are still held by a military that was found guilty of genocide in a United Nations report last year. Now the nation faces another challenge; one involving its fledgling tourism industry. In the early 2010s, the Southeast Asian nation was a picture of wide-eyed optimism as travel writers evangelised about the “land that time forgot” and kyat-rich arrivals streamed in to experience it, bringing hopes that tourism might help boost a weak economy. For the first half of the decade, everything seemed to be going according to plan, as international visitor numbers surged from 792,000 in 2010 to 4.7 million in 2015, according to CEIC Data. Tourism revenue followed the same trajectory..."