Apec seeks to boost tourism

HANOI – Asia-Pacific tourism ministers and officials were due to wrap up a meeting yesterday 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.Host country Vietnam is one of the Apec members that has benefited much from tourism and almost 70 per cent of its visitors in the past five years have come from Apec member economies.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 per cent 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.Nampa-AFPAmong 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.Host country Vietnam is one of the Apec members that has benefited much from tourism and almost 70 per cent of its visitors in the past five years have come from Apec member economies.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 per cent 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.Nampa-AFP