Myanmar Genocide Has the Travel Industry Searching for Strategies
Skift Take
Travel is the world's largest industry and should be taking a leadership position about Myanmar to publicly condemn ethnic cleansing, and show the country's military government that tourism dollars aren't unconditional if it supports crimes against humanity.
Repressive governments are a dime a dozen. But a military campaign of ethnic cleansing against a minority population is a notch above the usual filth, and as this horrific scenario plays out in Myanmar, travel brands are weighing how to respond.
Tour operators and other travel companies always assess the security situation in any country they operate in. Many have blanket policies for when any type of violence breaks out while others evaluate the situation on the ground on a case-by-case basis.
In Buddhist-majority Myanmar, the country's one million Rohingya Muslims have become victims of what many non-government organizations and human rights groups consider genocide by Myanmar's military. More than half a million people have fled the country en masse in recent months to neighboring Bangladesh.
This isn't the first time Myanmar's Muslim population has suffered and died under a military campaign, and the travel industry has a history of speaking out against the country's milit
