“Bikinis and fish don’t match” Exploring conflicts and local development of tourism in Ngapali, Burma

Against a backdrop of local, regional and national conflicts the former generals now in government, have decided to focus on tourism and have worked hard since 2010 to develop Burma’s tourism sector. Ngapali, a small costal community in Rakhine state has been developed into a tourism destination with hotels and restaurants, all located on a beautiful beach. Tourism has great implications for communities, both negative and positive. For Ngapali the development of tourism led to an increased amount of jobs in the tourism sector. The access to hospitality training and education also increased. Educated and trained staff were able to demand higher wages for themselves and they managed to access further hospitality training at other tourist destinations in Burma. The few Burmese Rohingya employed at the hotels did unfortunately not share this rather empowered position the Burmese Buddhists had as they fell victim to severe discrimination. Unfortunately the development of tourism in Ngapali led to a conflict between the hotels located at the beach and the fishermen who traditionally had used the beach for drying fish. The lack of participation from local population in the development of tourism was also problematic. The Burmese government chose to design the tourism sector in Ngapali as they pleased without taking the local community into account. The use of hotel zones, sand mining, lack of infrastructure thus leading all tourists to fly to Ngapali, the fact that the hotels used already scarce water and electricity resources and the discrimination and ill-treatment of marginalized groups made the tourism sector unsustainable. In addition to these local conflicts and issues the over-all situation in Rakhine, and even Burma, make the future for Ngapali as a tourism destination very uncertain