(TITC) – In the framework of the APEC 1st Senior Officials' Meeting (SOM 1), on 23 Feb, a workshop on sustainable tourism in APEC region was held in Nha Trang City under the chair of Dr. Ha Van Sieu, Vice Chairman of Viet Nam National Administration of Tourism.
Dr. Ha Van Sieu - Vice Chairman of Viet Nam National Administration of Tourism
The workshop had the participation of approximately 100 delegates from APEC members, tourism professionals, speakers of int’l organizations including World Tourism and Travel Council (WTTC), Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), International Air Transport Association ( IATA), Green Key, etc.
Speaking at the workshop, Vice Chairman Ha Van Sieu emphasized that in recent years, APEC has become a friendly and attractive destination for tourists. In 2015, APEC region received over 396 million tourist arrivals, accounting for 33% of the total number of tourists in the world, creating tourism turnover of over USD 598 billion (44,5% of global tourism turnover). Tourism ministers of APEC expected to welcome about 800 million tourist arrivals to the region by 2025.
He also mentioned the challenges for APEC tourism, particularly natural negative phenomena. Tourism sector is vulnerable by changes of nature such as climate change, sea-level rise. Sustainable tourism development has thus been identified as an important target of APEC members and the whole world.
In response to the International Year 2017 of Sustainable Tourism launched by UNWTO, Viet Nam has launched an initiative to organize a High-Level Policy Roundtable on Sustainable Tourism in the context of climate change which is expected to take place in Ha Long City, Quang Ninh Province in June 2017.
Thanh Tam