From the perspective of the Myanmar government, tourism would
have set off long time ago. But promotional efforts were met by
strong opposition in the mid 1990s when the NLD (National League
for Democracy with Aung San Suu Kyi) called for a tourism
boycott due to human rights violations committed in the name of
tourism. The Myanmar government had encouraged tourism by
establishing the Myanmar Tourism Law in 1990 and the Ministry of
Hotels and Tourism in 1992. Since then private entrepreneurs and
foreign investors developed tourism infrastructures in the
country. The Visit Myanmar Year campaign was initiated in 1996
by the government, a promotional campaign which the private
sector actively participated in, and democracy groups actively
(and successfully) opposed. Since then international visitor
arrivals to Myanmar have slowly increased to 791,500 visitors in
2010. This is a very small number compared with other countries
in Southeast Asia. In 2010 Laos and Cambodia received 2.5
million tourists, Vietnam 5 mi