Myanmar possesses many outstanding tourist attractions related to natural scenery, culture and history. The ethnic groups are of special interest alongside its religious architecture; for example, the former capital of Bagan has over 2000 temples, stupas and pagodas. The slow progress of modernisation is also deemed a selling point in travel literature, the country presented as a place in which to experience Asia as it once was. Tourism is concentrated in Yangon, Bagan, Mandalay and Taung-gyi near Inle Lake which were identified by the government as major tourist centres in the mid-1990s. These can be found on the map in Figure 1 which also shows the Ayeyarwaddy (Irrawady)river, a cruising venue. In spite of the wealth of tourism resources, the country’s potential as a destination has yet to be realised. Its relatively poor showing compares with that of nearby countries such as Thailand and Vietnam which attracted 8.6 million and 1.8 million respectively in 1998;even Laos recorded 270,000visitors that year (WTO, 2000). Myanmar’s weak performance is largely attributable to political circumstances, but there has also been some expansion as a result of a policy to promote tourism which itself is the consequence of political and economic change.