ASEAN Tourism Forum 2009: Striving for a new height

After seven days of workshops (between the 5 th and 12 th of January, 2009), the ASEAN Tourism Forum 2009 (ATF 2009) held in Hanoi mapped out new action programmes to stimulate the tourism demand in each country in the coming years, adopting the motto Striving for a new height.

The opening ceremony of ATF 2009. The 29th session of ASEAN National Tourism Organizations (ASEAN NTOs).  The signing ceremony of Mutual Recognition Arrangement (MRA) within ATF 2009 with the participation of ASEAN Ministers of Tourism.  Ministers of Tourism pose together. Stalls of companies at TRAVEX. After seven days of workshops (between the 5th and 12th of January, 2009), the ASEAN Tourism Forum 2009 (ATF 2009) held in Hanoi mapped out new action programmes to stimulate the tourism demand in each country in the coming years, adopting the motto "Striving for a new height". It was the first time Vietnam held the largest-scale event within the ASEAN tourism co-operation framework. It was a chance forVietnam to promote its images and tourism potential to the world, making a contribution to enhancing the position of Vietnam both regionally and internationally. The Forum attracted the participation of 200 delegates from 10 ASEAN member countries, dialogue countries and nearly 2,000 tourist product and service suppliers and consumers. A travel exhibition (Travex) with 573 stalls, contributed to the success of AFT 2009 with many prospects for the Vietnamese tourism sector in particular and ASEAN in general. ATF 2009 included activities, such as the ASEAN Tourism Ministerial Meeting, the Meetings of ASEAN Tourism Ministers with Dialogue Countries; the Meeting of National Tourism Organizations; the Meeting of Special Working Group on ASEAN Tourism Integration; the Meeting of ASEAN Tourism and the Meeting of Executive Board of ASEAN Tourism Association with the aim of hammering out solutions and strategies for the ailing ASEAN tourist industry in the coming years when the world’s economy has seen much change. Reviewing 2008, although being hit by the global financial crisis, the number of international tourists to ASEAN+3 (ASEAN and China,Japan and South Korea ) reached a high rate (93 millions of tourists). China, Japan and South Korea were important markets of ASEAN with a total of over 9.1 million tourists, accounting for 19.01% of the total number of international tourists to ASEAN. This Forum and others in the following years will forge out master solutions applied to ASEAN towards comprehensive development. Working towards the plan of building the ASEAN community by 2015, at this forum the Philippines was assigned the task to build Terms of References (TOR) that will be discussed at the working group meeting held in April 2009 in Myanmar . TOR is the major strategy of the plan and tourism marketing is an important factor of the tactic. One of the activities highly appreciated is to promote tourism in three major markets, including Australia, China and South Korea . ASEAN delegates agreed to build a tourism development strategy for the 2011-2015 period and its prioritized strategy will focus on exploiting the youth tourism share, building package tours to new tourist destinations with competitive prices and designing a calendar of youth events with the aim of promoting travel by air, road and waterway within ASEAN and three partner countries of China, Japan and South Korea. The closing ceremony of ATF 2009. To carry out the master solutions for ASEAN tourism complex, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) approved the project on ASEAN Competitiveness Enhancement (ACE). The signing of a memorandum of understanding by USAID and ASEAN Tourism Association (ASEANTA) at this forum was the initial step to carry out the above-mentioned plan to develop a new, more effective ASEAN tourism marketing strategy. It will promote co-ordination and co-operation between the tourism and transport sectors to create conditions for travel by buses via borders among countries and the project on building the ASEAN common tourism signpost.    In terms of the solutions to the tourism manpower development, the Ministers of Tourism approved the Mutual Recognition Arrangement (MRA) on tourism profession to enhance the quality of tourism manpower and create conditions to shift skilled tourism labourers in the region. After the Arrangement was signed, the ASEAN National Tourism Agency builds the next steps of MRA, including enhancing the capacity for related organizations within the MRA framework at the national and regional level. Apart from the above mentioned solutions, activities on promoting youth tourism will be deeply invested in. The latest prominent point is to start the ASEAN Tourism Youth Ambassador Programme from January 15- 24, 2009, ASEAN+3 Tourism Students Summit in Bali, Indonesia in June 2009. The two events serve as a buffer to launch the Youth Tourism Year for ASEAN (2009-2010). Each country participating in the forum had its own solutions to promote tourism activities for mutual co-operation and development. The representatives of Singapore and Myanmar gave out the statistics of the number of tourists in 2008 and affirmed that these tourists were from ASEAN. In the near future, Singapore and Myanmar will continue devising strategic co-operated projects to promote tourism within ASEAN and paying much attention to attracting tourists from countries outside ASEAN. With the above strategic solutions, ATF 2009 was evaluated by Tran Chien Thang – Deputy Minister of Culture, Sports and Tourism and General Director of the General Department of Tourism as an event of political, economic and social significance and a common initiative to build ASEAN into an attractive destination that develops sustainably and makes a contribution to promoting co-operation, tourist exchange and cultural exchange and fostering peace and prosperity in the region. ATF 2009 ended, formulating many solutions towards a new height. ATF 2010 will be held in Brunei Darussalam.  -  ATF was first held in 1981 in Malaysia and annually held in ASEAN countries in rotation. So far,Malaysia, Singapore and the Philippines held five ATFs while Thailand and Indonesia held four ATFs andBrunei, Laos and Cambodia held one AFT. Since becoming a member of ASEAN, Vietnam actively participates in all ATFs. -   Vietnam strives to receive about 5 million international tourists and 21.5 million domestic tourists in 2009 and 6 million international tourists and 23.5 million domestic tourists in 2010. Vietnam pays much attention to reducing the prices of aviation, hotels and souvenirs. At the forum, Vietnam launched a number of events to be held in the coming time, such as the Tourism Year of Tay Nguyen (the Central Highlands); the Fireworks Contest in Da Nang; Nha Trang Beach Festival; Mekong-Japanese Tourist and Cultural Days in Can Tho; the 3rd  Asian Indoor Games; a foodstuff and hotel fair in Ho Chi Minh City; the programme of “Three countries: Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia – One destination” in Ho Chi Minh City (2009); Visit Hanoi Year to celebrate the capital’s 1,000th anniversary;  Festival Hue; Miss World Contest in Nha Trang, the International Film  Festival and the International Puppetry and Circus in 2010. -   Within ATF, the travel exhibition (TRAVEX) was held at the National Exhibition Centre with the participation of 446 international travel companies and over 500 partners operating in the tourism sector with the aim of promoting the tourism market of ASEAN countries.