ASEAN designs tourism boosters

ASEAN designs tourism boosters

Eileen Ng, Agence France-Presse, Langkawi, Malaysia

Southeast Asian tourism ministers gather on Monday on the Malaysian resort island of Langkawi to assess the impact of the Asian tsunami on their economies and seek ways to revitalize the industry.

Ministers from the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) will also hold talks with their counterparts from China, Japan, South Korea and India on Tuesday on consolidating travel and tourism as part of a wider economic integration.

A series of meetings will be held on the sidelines by the region's tourism organizations, airline companies, travel agents and hoteliers hoping to reassure long-haul travellers that the tsunami was an isolated event and that it is safe to return to the region.

A number of tourism bargains will be on offer at a tourism forum and travel mart, expected to draw some 1,700 representatives from 55 countries.

Malaysian Tourism Minister Leo Michael Toyad has said the summit would focus on post-tsunami efforts and on charting new directions to jointly accelerate growth and development of the region's travel industry.

While there had been an indication of a rebound in tourist arrivals to the region after the Dec. 26 earthquake and giant waves killed nearly 220,000 people, he said more must be done to boost travel sentiment.

Tourism is a major revenue-earner for ASEAN members, generating US$27.7 billion in 2002 -- excluding Brunei -- or 4.8 percent of ASEAN's gross domestic product.

The ASEAN Tourism Association has projected tourist arrivals to surge to 56 million in 2006, up from nearly 50 million expected this year.

The region's travel sector has in recent years weathered the fallout from international terrorism, the deadly SARS virus and the bird flu health scare, and the industry is confident of a quick rebound from last month's calamity.

Reconstruction work has already begun in Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia and Myanmar.

While it is still too early the gauge the full impact of the devastation, the Bangkok-based Pacific Asia Travel Association (PATA) said it was likely extensive in Indonesia and Thailand while Malaysia had quickly recovered and little impact was seen in Myanmar.

Among ASEAN countries, nearly 170,000 people died in Indonesia, more than 5,300 in Thailand -- half of them Western holidaymakers -- 68 in Malaysia and 59 in Myanmar.

ASEAN members have mounted individual marketing campaigns abroad to sell their tourism products but joint efforts could be more beneficial, PATA said.

"There will be a rebound obviously but it is important for ASEAN to present a unified front and coordinate measures including an early warning system to prevent this from happening again," said PATA's strategic intelligence director John Koldowski.

Travel agents said the number of cancellations had generally declined and leisure travellers were choosing other destinations in the region unaffected by the crisis. But there had been a shift away by long-haul travellers from Southeast Asia to Canada, Australia and Europe.

The World Tourism Organization last week said the tsunami was expected to have a limited impact on world tourism and predicted that the industry would recover more quickly than expected.