ASEAN to ink tourism pact

ASEAN to ink tourism pact

Eileen Ng, Agence France-Presse, Kuala Lumpur

Southeast Asian leaders will seal a tourism pact at their summit in Cambodia next month to revive confidence in the region following the bloody bomb blasts in Bali, a minister said Tuesday.

The decision to deepen tourism cooperation among the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) was made two years ago but there was more urgency now following the Bali tragedy, said Malaysian Tourism Minister Abdul Kadir Sheikh Fadzir.

"The leaders will sign an ASEAN tourism agreement in Cambodia. It will spell out the decision of all ASEAN countries to work together to promote tourism to the region and also intra-ASEAN travel," he told reporters.

"We want to help each other in tourism, to encourage intra- ASEAN travel. Maybe the richer ASEAN countries will invest in hotel resort development in the not-so-rich ones. It's cooperation in the wider sense."

The annual ASEAN summit on November 4-5 in Phnom Penh will bring together leaders from Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Vietnam, Singapore, Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and Thailand.

Heads of state or high-ranking officials are also expected from China, Japan, South Korea and India.

The Bali bombing, which killed at least 190 people, was a huge blow to ASEAN's multi-billion-dollar tourism industry, already reeling from terrorism, kidnappings and the aftermath of Sept. 11.

The region has been hit by mass cancellations following the Oct. 12 blast but tour operators say it is still premature to conclude that travellers are steering clear of the region.

Many countries have however, cautioned their citizens against travelling to Indonesia following warnings by the U.S., Britain and Australia of possible new attacks, especially at tourism sites in cities and resorts.

Australia and Britain have also issued travel advisories warning of heightened risk alerts in most ASEAN countries.

Earlier, Abdul Kadir launched two tourism funds totalling 600 million ringgit (US$158 million) to boost development in the industry in Malaysia, where it is the second top foreign exchange earner.

He played down concerns over terrorism threats in Malaysia, which has detained 72 suspected Muslim extremists, some allegedly linked to the al-Qaeda terror network, since late last year.

"Our theme to the world is 'Malaysia Truly Asia' -- that this is a moderate, liberal, multiracial, multicultural country where people live happily with one another," he said.

"Statistics prove that we are one of the safest countries in the world. We will continue to work very hard but we have to anticipate problems because there wll be all sort of problems all the time.

"Bali is just one thing but there will be other things -- the haze, economic recession which is even worse especially in countries which are our leading tourism targets. We must be quick to make changes."

Abdul Kadir said the government sponsored some 600 tour operators and journalists on visits to the country each month for familiarisation tours and spent millions of dollars on advertisements overseas.

An average one million tourists visit the country monthly, with gross receipts of two billion ringgit, he said.

The government has set a target of 15 million tourist arrivals for 2003, he said. Some 10 million tourists visited Malaysia in the nine months to September, compared to 12.77 million in 2001.

Abdul Kadir said the two new funds would provide loans to improve tourism products in the country to compete with emerging tourist destinations such as Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar.

He said negotiations to set up a theme park with Hollywood giant Universal Studios were ongoing but declined to elaborate.