MEKONG TOURISM OFFICE UNITES WITH TRAVELMOLE

BANGKOK, November 16, 2006 – The Mekong Tourism Office (MTO) today announced a two-year partnership with TravelMole to promote travel to and within the Greater Mekong Subregion, which comprises Cambodia, China (Guangxi and Yunnan provinces), Laos, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam.

TravelMole is a highly-utilised online community for the travel and tourism industry and has over 400,000 travel industry subscribers worldwide.

The initiative, called “Mekong With Love”, creates new opportunities for travel industry operators to promote their products and services and exchange news, views and education about a region that is culturally and scenically rich, yet still has 60 million people living on less than a dollar a day.

“The Mekong Tourism Office and TravelMole are taking practical steps to uphold the Greater Mekong countries’ vision of sustainable tourism supporting poverty alleviation. The ADB strongly support this vision,” said Mr Alfredo Perdiguero, project economist with responsibility for Mekong region tourism in the Asian Development Bank. “The Greater Mekong Subregion is still relatively unknown in the world travel market. It deserves a bigger audience. The MTO-TravelMole initiative is a big step in the right direction,” he said.

With the MTO-TravelMole partnership in place, tourism operators outside the Mekong subregion sending visitors, and operators inside the region receiving visitors, have five major ways to take advantage of the arrangement. The following five services are being offered free of charge to Mekong tourism operators:-

1) Three banner insertions in “WEEKEND: Mekong With Love” ePublication to 400,000+ travel industry professionals

2) The running of feature articles, with bylines, in “WEEKEND: Mekong With Love” (the articles can be submitted by Mekong destinations, operators or journalists)

3) Press release distribution to more than 9,000 travel media journalists and editors

4) Webinars (online seminars) about a destination and/or service/product sector

5) The creation of a dedicated Mekong zone on http://www.travelmole.com/ for the hosting of eBrochures from tourist offices or outbound tour operators serving the Mekong region.

Interested parties should apply to [email protected]. TravelMole-MTO will then review requests for approval for each banner, feature or release, as there is limited space available. Technical details will be e-mailed to approved applicants.

Charles Kao, TravelMole’s UK-based publisher said: “Successful applicants will be those who send submissions that are not just self-serving, but are articles, releases, presentations and banners that are somewhere between journalism and advertorial, that elaborate about the segment or destination under discussion and not just about a company’s individual product.”

TravelMole, which is allocating staff resources to set up the Mekong zone online, will allow up to three insertions from each interested Mekong destination or operator. “After that we should have momentum going and should be able to offer extended promotional campaign options at special rates,” said Mr Kao.

“Webinars” are online seminars ideal for promoting destinations and detailing products and services to overseas travel agents and tour operators. Destinations would organise up to five panel members and someone to serve as moderator. TravelMole would then create online presentations which could include short videos. TravelMole would also provide a coordinator to rehearse and run the webinar and send panellists a log-on password, venue and time to join in. All participants need is broadband internet.

Mr Kao added: “The overall objective is to raise awareness about the Mekong as a destination, especially among opinion leaders such as travel agents and media.”

Mr Stephen Yong, executive director of the Bangkok-based MTO said his office would send an invitation to the MTO’s database of companies and organisations detailing the five options. “We’re happy to promote tourism businesses that have a product or service that is compatible with the six Mekong governments’ sustainable vision for the region,” he said.

Mr Yong said the MTO’s e-newsletter content provider, Bangkok-based ScottAsia Communications, would work with TravelMole to assess and deliver the best exposure for hotels, tour operators, airlines, heritage sites, museums and educational centres in the Mekong region.

Mr Kao said: “Mekong With Love is a platform comprising free and – eventually – pay-for elements. For the first time TravelMole can draw strategic attention to one of the world’s great destinations. We look forward to offering the same development platform in other subregions, including the Indian subcontinent.”

##

About the Mekong Tourism Office
The Bangkok-based Mekong Tourism Office was established in February 2006. Its four key objectives are to 1) Develop and promote the Mekong as a single destination, offering a diversity of good quality and high-yielding subregional products that help to distribute the benefits of tourism more widely 2) Add to the tourism development efforts of each GMS country 3) Contribute to poverty reduction, gender equality and the empowerment of women 4) Promote sustainable development, while minimising adverse impacts. Contact: [email protected]. http://www.mekongtourism.org/.

About TravelMole
TravelMole is the most highly acclaimed and largest global online community for the travel and tourism industry with over 450,000 registered travel and tourism professionals worldwide (133,000 in Europe/Russia; 241,000 in North America; 23,000 in Asia Pacific, and 59,000 in other countries). Whether you are a travel agent, tour operator, conference and meeting planner, group travel organiser, tourist officer, trade supplier, hotelier, travel journalist, destination marketing officer, or other travel and tourism professional, you will find a wealth of relevant, useful information here on TravelMole.com. Contact: [email protected]. http://www.travelmole.com/.

About ScottAsia Communications
Bangkok-based ScottAsia Communications was established in August 2006 by former PATA Director-Communications Mr Ken Scott to deliver targeted public relations results to small and medium-sized companies in the travel and business services sectors in Asia. Contact: [email protected]. http://www.scottasia.net/.