Region's tour operators to focus on Asia

Region's tour operators to focus on Asia

Asip A. Hasani, The Jakarta Post, Yogyakarta

Travel firms in Southeast Asia are to focus their marketing
efforts on attracting tourists from the Asia Pacific region as
the number of travelers from Europe and the U.S. has declined
following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

At the same time, the tour operators will also step up their
campaign to assure Western governments that the region is safe
for travelers.

"Of course, the business is not as good as it was previously
after most of the governments of the European countries, as
well as the United States, Australia, and Japan, issued travel
bans in respect of many ASEAN countries," chief
executive officer of One Asia Travel, Alfred C.
Tonkiss, told The Jakarta Post on the sidelines of
Travel Exchange (Travex) at the 2002 Association of South
East Asian Nations (ASEAN) Tourism Forum (ATF) here on
Sunday.

One Asia Travel is one of the biggest travel
groups specializing in East and Southeast Asian
countries.

Travex, officially opened on Sunday by Yogyakarta
Governor Hamengku Buwono X, is being attended by 804
vendors of tourism products from 9 countries, and 380 buyers from
47 countries.

The Sept. 11 attacks by terrorists using hijacked aircraft,
coupled with the global economic slump, has hit world tourism
hard.

The image of the region as a safe place for travelers has been
tarnished, particularly following the recent crackdown on alleged
terrorist groups linked to Osama bin Laden, accused by the U.S.
government as being the mastermind behind the September attacks.

Threats directed by certain militant groups in Indonesia
against U.S. citizens and Britons following the U.S.-led attacks
on Afghanistan last year have also prompted Western governments
to issue travel bans on Indonesia.

Tourism is one of the major sources of revenue for governments
in the region.

Tonkiss criticized the governments of the United States
and the European countries for issuing travel bans on
countries such as Indonesia without having conducted thorough
examinations.

"Yogyakarta is (actually) not such a big problem (to travel
to), neither is Sumatra. And Bali is no problem at all. But at
the moment, they don't want their people to travel to any
part of the country, including Bali. This is bad for us,"
he said.

Tonkiss, however, expressed optimism that the prospects for
the tourism industry in Southeast Asia would brighten over the
next six years.

He said that 80 percent of the tourists in the region would
come from within the Asian countries, with the remainder coming
mostly from Europe.

Separately, the operations manager of the Yogyakarta-based Sri
Rama Tours, Yok Pin, told the Post that the September terrorist
attacks in New York had caused a steep decline in tourist
arrivals in Yogyakarta, especially among those who traveled in
groups. He said, however, that the number of individual travelers
had scarcely been affected.

But he said that improving relations with China were a
positive factor for the tourism industry in Yogyakarta.

The sales manager of the Kuala Lumpur-based travel firm
Reliance Sightseeing, Jennifer Pong, said that the
company had shifted its promotional focus to the Asian countries,
especially China and India, following the issuance of
travel bans on most parts of Malaysia by the European
countries, the United States, and Japan.

The director of Thailand-based travel firm Asian Premier
Holidays, Ron O'Connell, told the Post that his company was
currently focusing on China and the Middle Eastern countries.