Opening the 46th Meeting of ASEAN National Tourism Organisations

46th Meeting of ASEAN National Tourism Organisations

On 24 July 2017, the 46th Meeting of ASEAN National Tourism Organisations was officially launched in Flamingo Dai Lai Resort, Vinh Phuc Province, Viet Nam in the context of celebrating the 50th Anniversary of ASEAN (8 August 1967-2017).

The meeting had the participation of more than 100 delegates from ASEAN National Tourism Organisations (NTOs), ASEAN Secretariat, ASEAN Tourism Association and media agencies.

On his opening speech, Chairman of Viet Nam National Administration of Tourism (VNAT), Mr. Nguyen Van Tuan stressed that ASEAN region is endowed with great potentials for tourism development and has achieved encouraging achievements in recent years. In 2016, the region recorded more than 113 million visitor arrivals, increasing by 7% compared to 2015. In particular, Viet Nam received over 10 million international arrivals in 2016, seeing an increase of 26% over the previous year. In the 6 first months of 2017, there were 6.2 million international arrivals to Viet Nam, reaching a remarkable rise of 30%.

However, ASEAN tourism has been facing with difficulties and challenges related to global climate change, policy barriers to tourism development. Therefore, in order to maintain the tourism growth, attract more arrivals, ASEAN NTOs should strengthen closer cooperation in tourism promotion, upgrading tourism service quality, tourism infrastructure investment as well as diversifying tourism products, Chairman Nguyen Van Tuan said. Also, ASEAN NTOs should closely collaborate with relevant agencies to resolve difficulties, facilitate visitors, further strengthen cooperation with dialogue partners including Japan, China, South Korea, Russia, India and other countries, international organisations to take advantages of their technical assistance and investment for rapid and sustainable development of ASEAN tourism.

As scheduled, the meetings of ASEAN and China, Japan, and ROK (ASEAN+3) NTOs; ASEAN-China NTOs; and ASEAN-India Tourism Working Group will take place on 26 July after the 46th Meeting of ASEAN National Tourism Organisations.

The meetings concentrate to issues set out in ASEAN Tourism Strategic Plan (ATSP) 2016-2025 such as ASEAN Tourism Marketing Strategy 2017-2020; establishment of the Regional Secretariat for the implementation of MRA-TP; ASEAN tourism products; ASEAN Joint Declaration on cruise tourism; community and private sector participation.

*Thanh Tam