The aim is to illuminate the political processes ----------- and central to tourism, showing how political ideologies and events affect tourist arrivals and the tourism industry and how tourism may function as an instrument ofreform. After an opening summary of the literature pertaining to the relationship between politics and tourism, an account is provided of conditions in Myanmar generally and in terms of its tourism in orderto set the scene. The positions of the various parties involved are then assessed with emphasis on the military regime and its policies which demonstrate the appeal of tourism to those holding political power, even formerly xenophobic military dictatorships. Myanmar’s junta is shown to have chosen to develop tourism in pursuit of a political agenda incorporating economic and hegemonic goals, a decision strongly challenged by adversaries at home and overseas. These have invested tourism with differentpolitical meanings and purposes, some seeking to secure their own aims of democratisation by calling for a tourism ban. Such demands have been resisted by certain sections of the travel industry and more friendly nations which contend that tourism is a mechanism for positive change. The article ends with a discussion of the effectiveness of the attempted boycott.