AND BAGHDAD WILL OUTDRAW THEM ALL:

Once Ravaged by War, Now Vacation Spots (KAREN ANGEL, 9/01/07, NY Times)

In large part, Rwanda is seeking to copy the success of Vietnam. The country is perceived as a safe, tourist-friendly destination, and services, including tourism, now make up about 40 percent of its gross domestic product. South Korea, Cambodia and Laos — other Asian countries ravaged by war several decades ago —have also become popular among tourists and serious about promoting their offerings. At the end of July, Laos played host to an ecotourism conference for countries in the Mekong region.

Some countries whose names are synonymous with more recent civil wars — like Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Northern Ireland — are giving tourism a big push, with mixed results.

“Tourism has developed into the key sector of the economy,” said Arna Ugljen, a spokeswoman for the Tourism Association of Bosnia and Herzegovina. “Its development has an extremely positive effect on the national economy and society on the whole, particularly in terms of the creation of new jobs.”

Since the republic’s three-year civil war ended in 1995, Bosnia and Herzegovina has doubled the number of tourists visiting to about 500,000 yearly, largely through presentations at trade shows, organizing trips for foreign journalists and creating marketing materials. [...]

In contrast, Rwanda has taken some bold steps to encourage tourism from neighboring countries and enhance trade and economic opportunity. On July 1, Rwanda joined the East African Community, a bloc that includes Burundi, Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda; much like the European Union, the group plans to introduce a single currency and relax border controls. Serena Hotels cited Rwanda’s participation in the bloc as a factor in its decision to enter the country.

Rwanda’s president, Paul Kagame, was also a factor. Mr. Kagame was elected to a seven-year term by 95 percent of the vote in the country’s first contested multiparty elections in 2003. Before that, there was always just one candidate. His economic and social reforms have started to take root, reducing corruption and improving public safety.

That has made the country more attractive to investors. Its new Investment and Export Promotion Agency registered projects worth $245 million last year, compared with just $12.6 million in 2000, said Clare Akamanzi, the agency’s deputy director general for investment promotion. Foreign investment rose to $120 million from $2.3 million in the period.

Without a doubt, Rwanda’s tourism industry has plenty of kinks to iron out, like the dead cow no one seemed in a hurry to remove at the water’s edge a short distance from the Lake Kivu Serena Hotel. There are also few tourist-friendly hotels and restaurants and no Internet service outside the handful of town centers and resorts.

In 2006, 37,000 tourists visited Rwanda, bringing in $35 million, up from fewer than 2,000 in 2000, said Rosette Chantal Rugamba, the director general of the Office of Tourism and National Parks, a cabinet post she filled in 2003. Last year, more than a third of the tourists were from the United States, which sends more tourists to Rwanda than any other country.

Which is why Realist pessimism about war zones never makes much sense.

Posted by Orrin Judd at September 2, 2007 8:58 AM