Southeast Asian tourism ministers launch 10-year plan to boost tourism

In a bid to boost tourism, Southeast Asian tourism ministers launched a 10-year plan on Friday to market their region as a single destination. The ministers sought to raise tourism’s share of the regional economy to 15 percent by 2025.

Also a “Visit ASEAN@50″ campaign will be launched to mark the 50th anniversary of the regional group next year, the ministers from the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations announced. The campaign will showcase hundreds of ASEAN tourism products, events and experiences and target people within and outside the region.
An ASEAN cruise brand with a logo of linked, colorful waves was also unveiled by the tourism ministers.

Tourism is a major pillar of integration for the region of more than 600 million people and accounted for 12.3 percent of ASEAN’s GDP in 2013 with 102.2 million tourist arrivals.
The 10-year tourism plan calls for intensified promotion and marketing, diversification of tourism products including development of sub-regional destinations, attraction of tourism investment, promotion of an ASEAN tourism standards certification system, expansion of connectivity and infrastructure, and increased participation of local communities in tourism.

Tourist arrivals in ASEAN are expected to increase to 152 million by 2025 and ASEAN is forecast to account for 25 percent of 1.8 billion world tourist arrivals by 2030.