Twenty one Tourism Minsters meet at APEC

Tourism Ministers from 21 APEC countries met in Hoi An yesterday to discuss tourism promotion strategies among APEC members.

Chairwoman of the Viet Nam National Administration for Tourism, Vo Thi Thang, said during the opening session of the ministerial retreat that tourism had contributed significantly to APEC countries’ economic development, helping to reduce poverty and provide jobs and it had also enhanced cultural understanding and exchange among APEC members, helping to reduce tension in the region and the world.

She noted though that the APEC Tourism Charter had not been fully implemented and called for stronger measures to ensure security and safety for tourists, to protect the environment, and preserve cultural values, addin that infrastructure needed to be better developed and standards raised in the tourism industry and to attain such sustainable development for the region’s tourism, APEC-member economies needed to improve cooperation.

The Vice Minister of Culture and Tourism of South Korea, Park Yang Woo, said the Korean Government had carried out diverse tourism policies to create jobs and boost regional development with in 2005 South Korea having 6 million inbound and 10 million outbound tourists, bringing in total revenues and expenditures of US$5.6 billion and US$12 billion, respectively.

Dr. Sasithara Pichaichannarong, Deputy General Secretary of the Thailand’s Ministry of Tourism and Sports, said in the first eight months of 2006, Thailand received more than 6.5 million international tourists, a year-on-year increase of 20%, with Thailand expected to receive 13.5 million tourists with total revenues of US$12.5 billion for this year.

According to figures released at the meeting, about 50 million Americans book inbound and outbound tours every year and the US, which is also the biggest tourist destination for travellers around the world, received 49 million visitors last year, including more than 19,000 from Viet Nam.

In the first eight months of 2006, Viet Nam received 267,000 American tourists, the majority being American of Vietnamese origin.

At the bilateral meeting between VNAT and the UN World Tourism Organisation, Deputy General Secretary of UNWTO Taleb Rifai, said UNWTO would like to see the improvement of the people’s quality of life through tourism development and the Deputy Head of VNAT Hoang Tuan Anh and Filipino deputy minister for Tourism Eduardo Jarque signed a tourism cooperation agreement for the 2007-2008 period between the two countries.

Anh also met with the deputy head of Chinese National Tourism Authority, Gu Zhaoxi, with the number of Chinese tourists to Viet Nam up from 626,000 in 2000 to 717,000 last year, however, in the first eight months of 2006, the number of Chinese tourists visiting Viet Nam dropped by 25% due to the Chinese ban of laisser-passers instead of passports that began in October 2005.

Report by The Mole