The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) tourism ministers endorsed the ASEAN tourism strategic plan 2011-2015 here on Monday."All ASEAN tourism ministers have endorsed the ASEAN tourism strategic plan 2011-2015 this morning," Cambodian Tourism Minister Thong Khon told reporters after the meeting. "This is the most important point in the 14th meeting of ASEAN tourism ministers this year."
The strategy aims at boosting intra-ASEAN broader promotions, developing intra-ASEAN tourism products, and attracting investment, he said.
Moreover, the strategy also focused on strengthening the quality of tourism services through human resources development and facilitating travels and transportation through connectivity of air, land and water ways to enable visitors to travel smoothly among ASEAN countries, he added. "The strategy will help to build ASEAN as an attractive tourism destination with a world class standard by 2015," Tith Chantha, director general of Cambodian Ministry of Tourism, said Monday after the ministerial meeting.
He said that the ASEAN tourism ministers will inform the strategy to its dialogue partners (China, Japan and South Korea) for technical and financial assistances on Tuesday during the ASEAN+3 (China, Japan, South Korea) tourism ministers meeting.
Speaking at the meeting on Monday, S. Pushpanathan, deputy secretary-general for ASEAN Secretariat's Economic Community, said that during the 17th ASEAN summit last year in Hanoi, Vietnam, the leaders adopted the master plan of ASEAN connectivity covered three aspects: physical connectivity focusing on transport and infrastructure; institutional connectivity focusing on facilitation of trades; and people to people connectivity. "Tourism is one sector that has been included in the master- plan. Under the people to people connectivity, the aim is to promote and invest in education and human resources development, to encourage innovation and entrepreneurship, and to promote ASEAN cultures and the development of tourism and related industries," he said. "So this is quite specific to the tourism sector."
Meanwhile, the full liberalization of air passenger services in the ASEAN community by 2015 is also supporting tourism sector, he added.
ASEAN groups Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.
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