Diversifying tourism in the Mekong sub-region

The cooperation of tourism among Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia and Myanmar was of extreme importance during the ASEAN Tourism Investment Forum held in Ho Chi Minh City.
As part of the International Tourism Exhibition of 2010, held in Ho Chi Minh City, the cooperation in diversifying travel options and connectivity between the four countries was the focus of the discussion among representatives from their respective tourism ministries.
Representatives from the four countries paid attention to opportunities and challenges of tourism investment, cooperation potentials, developing common regimes and policies, and creating favourable conditions that encourage investment in a bid to enhance competitiveness and attraction of tourism destinations in the Mekong sub-region.
According to the Deputy Minister of Culture, Sports and Tourism of Vietnam Tran Chien Thang, the ASEAN Tourism Investment Forum has resulted in 10 items of important cooperation agreements among the four countries including expansion into fields related to tourism activities.
“The multilateral cooperation for tourism development will not only create benefits for each country’s tourism industry but also positively impact investment on basic and infrastructure construction, service quality improvement and preserving cultural values, customs and traditions of the four countries. Additionally, it also creates foundation and momentum for hunger elimination, poverty reduction and sustainable tourism development in each country,” emphasised Thang.
In addition, the potential agreements also consist of encouraging application methods under which international tourists can enter the four countries more conveniently without visas; considering the possibility of connecting tours; coordinating to organise tourism programmes by roads or launching direct flights among well-known tourism sites of the four countries.
Thong Khon, Minister of Tourism of Cambodia said that his country wanted to contribute to establishing a tourism bloc among the four countries. In recent years, Cambodia has consistently been one of the countries having the highest number of international visitors in the region.
In 2009 alone, despite many challenges, it still attracted 360,000 Vietnamese tourists. From February to August 2010, the number of Vietnamese visitors increased by 51% compared with the same period of last year.
Somphong Mongkhonvilay, Chairman of the Lao National Tourism Administration stated, “In the near future, these countries will build more tourism road routes, open more international border gates. They will specifically establish tours running from Vientiane to Ho Chi Minh City by taxi will be launched to boost tourism growth in the region.”