ASEAN plans tourism body to boost links

ASEAN plans tourism body to boost links

KUALA LUMPUR (Reuter): The six member countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) plan to set up a new tourism body to link public and private efforts to boost growth, a senior official said yesterday.

Tourism officials from the ASEAN countries of Brunei, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia and the Philippines, are now studying the plan and will submit their findings at the next ASEAN tourism meeting in August, the official told Reuters.

Khoo Hock Aun, deputy executive director of the Kuala Lumpur- based ASEAN Tourism Information Center (Atic), which is funded by ASEAN members, said tourism had become a major industry for countries in the region.

ASEAN's tourism growth rate, at nine percent, far exceeded the worldwide average of 3.2 percent, he said.

Atic is the existing representative body for ASEAN tourism but the organization's term expires in March 1996 or when a new body is set up.

ASEAN countries cooperated collectively on a Visit ASEAN Year in 1992 which saw each country allocated a budget of US$0.5 million to boost international publicity.

Separately, Malaysia held Visit Malaysia Year in 1990 and 1994 as did Thailand and Indonesia in 1987 and 1991.

According to Atic's figures, ASEAN saw an estimated total of 25.8 million tourist arrivals last year, compared with 23.7 million in 1993.

Based on these estimates, ASEAN tourism arrivals accounted for 4.9 percent of total worldwide arrivals compared with 4.6 percent in 1993.

In July last year, the Madrid-based World Tourism Organization (WTO) said international tourist arrivals in East Asia and the Pacific grew four times faster than the world average in 1993, reaching a record-breaking 69 million.

The WTO forecast that east Asia and the Pacific will continue as the fastest-growing tourism region of the world with international arrivals reaching 101 million by the year 2000.