Countries and regions recently torn apart by violent conflict are turning to tourism to help them rebuild and restore stability. Karen Angel reports from El Salvador on the power of travel to heal the wounds of war

The photo exhibit at La Casona Bar and hostel in Suchitoto, El Salvador's new tourism boomtown, tells the story of the country's 12-year, U.S.-funded civil war. My guide's wife cries as she looks at the black-and-white photos of the brutal conflict, which claimed some 75,000 lives between 1980 and 1992. His friendly face turning tense, my guide explains that his wife has seen the images before but that they still shake those who lost relatives in the war—including him, her, and many others in this lovely Spanish colonial-style village that was once surrounded by guerrilla strongholds.

Little by little, however, that pain is being replaced by a new optimism, as foreign money again flows into El Salvador—this time from tourism and from outside investment that is helping to finance a recovery.

"We have everything that Costa Rica has in a smaller territory with very good highway infrastructure," says Rubén Rochi, El Salvador's tourism minister. Small hotels and mountain lodges are sprouting up around the country, including several large resorts financed by foreigners. The U.S.-based development company VisionMaker, for instance, is planning to build two hotels, a marina, and 1,500 condos on 200 acres at Lake Ilopango, a crater lake outside San Salvador, at a cost of $500 million, and La Casona's co-owner, Rene Luarca Maití, is one of several former guerrillas who are offering tours based on their experiences during the war.

In conversation after conversation, Salvadoran locals tell me how tourism has improved their lives. At the gracious restaurant La Posada de Suchitlan, in Suchitoto, waiter Marvin Escobar says that his job is paying for medical school. Juan Antonio Flamenco, a La Casona bartender who is the first person in his family to go to college, is studying to be a teacher. At the night market in Nahuizalco, a town on Ruta de las Flores, the western tourist roadway, Norma Elizabeth Salguero and her husband, Miguel, have a café where they say tourism has doubled their business on weekends, enabling them to pay off the mortgage on their house and buy a car.

Like El Salvador, a growing number of formerly war-torn countries and territories are turning to tourism to help maintain stability and stimulate their economy. Among the success stories, Northern Ireland now draws almost two million visitors a year, Bosnia and Herzegovina about 500,000. In Southeast Asia, Vietnam serves as a model, with tourism now making up about 40 percent of its gross domestic product. Cambodia and Laos are also seeing the benefits of becoming popular destinations.

"Tourism can fuel economies in post-conflict countries," says Edward Bergman, executive director of the Africa Travel Association, an industry trade group that promotes the continent as a destination. "It's the only industry in the world that, when planned and managed properly, takes nothing from a country, leaves behind hard currency, fosters education and job creation, and promotes peace and stability."