Tourism Indochina: Mekong tourism officials outline future orientation

Tourism Indochina: Mekong tourism officials outline future orientation

(Tourism Indochina:Date : 2009-01-13:)

The 2 nd meeting of Greater Mekong Sub-region (GMS) tourism ministers on Jan. 9 passed a joint declaration concerning recent progress in cooperation between the region’s tourism authorities and orientation for future development.

The GMS tourism ministers’ meeting took place within the framework of the ASEAN Tourism Forum (ATF) currently taking place in Hanoi.

GMS consists of Cambodia, China, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam.

The joint declaration said that GMS’s tourism sector is continuing to grow and is standing firm against the fallout from the global financial crisis. Meanwhile, a new website for tourism promotion activities is to be launched soon, which will also act as a forum to effectively implement the Mekong tourism promotion strategy, which was adopted in 2005.

The Mekong Tourism Coordinating Office (MTCO) has successfully organised three recent seminars aimed at accelerating the implementation of preferential projects under the tourism development plan, and preparing in-depth proposals to present at the upcoming conference of development partners later this year.

GMS tourism ministers praised the MTCO Executive Director’s efforts to speed up the programme regarding tourism development and marketing and improve coordination in the implementation of the tourism strategy.

The ministers also made a special note of the assistance received from the French government and the Asian Development Bank (ADB) in enhancing the MTCO’s financial and technical capacities, and spoke highly of Thailand’s initiative in launching the Mekong Tourism Year 2009-2010.

Regarding their orientation for the future, the six GMS countries’ tourism ministers affirmed that they would make full use of the sub-region’s infrastructure and improve and expand their coordination to promote the development of sustainable tourism in a socially responsible manner. The six nations vowed to continue to pool their resources in order to establish GMS as a common destination in the context of the global economic recession.

The six ministers requested that the Tourism Working Group and MTCO exploit all available resources and hoped that the upcoming conference of development partners later this year would be successful in expanding their mutually-beneficial partnership.

MGS expects to welcome 53 million foreign visitors by 2015, generating new jobs for more than 4.2 million workers


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