ASEAN member countries unite to promote tourism

ASEAN member countries unite to promote tourism

BANGKOK (Agencies): Six Southeast Asian nations will formally
create the ASEAN Tourism Center (ATC) next week to promote the
region as a single, "borderless" holiday destination, a Thai
official said yesterday.

The agreement establishing the center is to be signed here
Sunday during the Jan. 7-13 meeting of the ASEAN Tourism Forum,
which was created in 1981, said the official with the Tourism
Authority of Thailand (TAT).

ASEAN -- the Association of Southeast Asian Nations -- groups
Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and
Thailand.

The national tourism bodies of the six nations already have
agreed to set up the center. Once the memorandum of understanding
is signed, the national tourism chiefs will convene as the ATC's
board of directors and select a manager to run the center, the
Thai official was quoted by AFP as saying.

The board also will decide where to locate the center, he
said. Bangkok and Kuala Lumpur are the leading candidates.

While the six nations will continue to compete for tourist
dollars, the center will promote the ASEAN region as a whole and
will work with other countries to boost tourism throughout Asia.

Meanwhile, the Madrid-based World Tourism Organization said
yesterday that some 528 million people worldwide took holidays
abroad in 1994, three percent more than the previous year.

"People were traveling more, taking more short trips as a
result of economic recovery in the major generating markets," the
organization's Secretary General Antonio Enriquez Savignac said
as quoted by Reuters.

Foreign tourists spent US$321 billion while on holiday, five
percent more than the previous year, the group estimated.

Germans traveled most, making more than 65 million trips
abroad, followed by North Americans who made 47 million.

The destinations which registered the highest growth in
tourism were Southeast Asia, Australia and New Zealand, South
America and the Caribbean.