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Tourism plays an important role in encouraging cooperation and peace between the partitioned countries. The current study aims to investigate the influence of cross-border tourism on bilateral trade and cooperation between India and Myanmar. Further, the paper identifies the role of community support as a mediator between exogenous and endogenous variables. An onsite questionnaire is distributed among the residents of Indian border areas close to the neighboring border of Myanmar. The SEM is employed to reject the null hypotheses and test the proposed model empirically. The findings reveal that all the proposed hypotheses are supported. The cross-border cooperation is positively influenced by cross-border tourism development and trade between India and Myanmar. Moreover, community support mediates the relationship between cross-border tourism, bilateral trade, and cooperation. An important consideration from this paper is that tourism supported by border communities can act as a catalyst for promoting cooperation among hostile countries. India and Myanmar being close neighbors, have huge scope to support each other through different cross-border programs, projects, and bilateral trade. The study provides valuable insights for both countries to adopt tourism initiatives as a tool to ameliorate their relationships and develop the economic conditions of border communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present article aims to analyse the impact of pilgrim tourism on bilateral relations and to identify the mediating effect of people-to-people contact. It further proposes to test the framework empirically in the neighbouring context of India and Nepal. To achieve the objective, random sampling is used, and 380 usable questionnaires are taken for testing the theoretical framework. Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) is used to assess the framework's fit and analyse the impact of pilgrim tourism on bilateral diplomatic relations while using people-to-people contact as a mediating variable. The study findings reveal that pilgrim tourism has a direct impact on improving the bilateral diplomatic relationship between India and Nepal. It also shows that people-to-people contact between India and Nepal acts as a mediating variable between pilgrim tourism and bilateral diplomacy. In a vast country like India, which shares a border with many nations, pilgrim tourism and people-to-people contact have great potential to remove barriers and increase bilateral treaties for better development of the nation. The present research developed a measurement instrument about bilateral relations from the stakeholder's perspective. It also proposed a structural model to elucidate the relationships between pilgrim tourism, people-to-people contact and bilateral diplomacy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]