APEC Meeting Seeks to Boost Tourism in Pacific Rim Economies

Posted 17 October 2006 @ 09:09 am EET     Print     Reprint     E-Mail     Comments

HANOI (AP) - Asia-Pacific tourism ministers and officials are due to wrap up a meeting on ways to boost the fast-growing travel sector in a dynamic region home to 2.6 billion people.

The Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) meeting in the ancient port town of Hoi An was discussing how to strengthen cooperation and investment in sustainable tourism in the grouping of 21 Pacific Rim nations.

Among the proposals was a plan to strengthen air links between the region's cultural heritage sites, to increase public-private partnerships and to create a rotating APEC tourism fair to better market the region.

Japanese delegation head Ken Harura suggested APEC members promote more youth exchanges and set up more twin city ties.

Tourism now employs over 100 million people in the APEC region, with 30 million more jobs expected by 2010, when the industry will be worth over three trillion dollars a year, according to the World Travel and Tourism Council.

"In addition to supporting job growth in the hospitality and transportation industries, tourism has been proven to support complementary sectors as well," said Vo Thi Thang of Vietnam's national tourism administration.

"Improving skills for workers in the service sector encourages more visitors, leading to a better experience for tourists and ultimately to greater spending in the Asia-Pacific region," said Thang.

Representatives of China, Japan and South Korea earlier said the Asia-Pacific region had faced challenges including earthquakes, the 2004 tsunami and bird flu, state media reported.

"Despite the challenges such as natural disasters and the threat of a pandemic outbreak of avian influenza, the industry has made significant strides in recent years," Thang said.

Host country Vietnam is one of the APEC members that has benefited much from tourism and almost 70 percent of its visitors in the past five years have come from APEC member economies.

Vietnam signed tourism cooperation agreements with Russia and the Philippines at the meeting and held talks with other delegations, including those of China and Japan, state media reported.

Vietnam also showed off its own tourism potential, inviting delegates to tour Hoi An and the nearby My Son Sanctuary, both UNESCO world cultural heritage sites.

Hoi An was badly hit two weeks ago by Typhoon Xangsane, which left more than 70 people dead and injured over 500, but damage to many of the town's tourism facilities had been fixed by this week, officials said.

APEC, established in 1989, works by consensus and makes no binding commitments. Its members span four continents, are home to over 2.6 billion people and represent 57 percent of global economic output, APEC says.

It groups Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Peru, Philippines, Singapore, Russia, Taiwan, Thailand, the US and Vietnam.