(TITC) - On 4th February, in Yogyakarta, Indonesia, the 26th Meeting of ASEAN Tourism Ministers took place. This is an important activity that happened within the framework of the ASEAN Tourism Forum - ATF 2023.
MOCST’s Deputy Minister Doan Van Viet attended and spoke at the meeting (Photo: TITC)
H.E. Sandiaga Salahuddin Uno, Minister of Tourism and Creative Economy, Republic of Indonesia, chaired the Meeting and H.E. Mrs. Suanesavanh Vignaket, Minister of Information, Culture and Tourism, Lao PDR, was the Vice-Chairperson. Mr. Doan Van Viet, Deputy Minister of Vietnam’s Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism (MOCST); Mr. Ha Van Sieu, Vice Chairman of Vietnam National Administration of Tourism; Ministers of Tourism, leaders of Departments under MOCST and VNAT attended the meeting.
The Meeting endorsed the report and recommendations on the progress of the implementation of ASEAN tourism activities, including: Agendas for M-ATM+3 (China, Japan and Korea); M-ATM+India and M-ATM+Russia; Consultancy with international organisations: World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO), ASEAN-China Centre (ACC), ASEAN-Japan Centre (AJC) and ASEAN-Korea Centre (AKC), Pacific Asia Travel Association (PATA), The ASEAN Tourism Association (ASEANTA), ASEAN Tourism Research Association (ATRA), US-ASEAN Business Council (US-ABC).
Overview of the meeting (Photo: TITC)
Giving his remarks at the meeting, MOCST’s Deputy Minister Doan Van Viet said, 2022 witnessed the robust recovery of the region’s tourism industry. Member countries in turn opened and lifted travel restrictions related to Covid-19. As a result, in the last months of 2022, the number of international visitors to the region has increased rapidly, promoting the return of bustling tourism-related ancillary services, contributing to job creation and economic growth in general.
In this intersection period of the tourism industry, the ASEAN tourism cooperation mechanism has affirmed the importance of maintaining connectivity and close cooperation among ASEAN member states. MOCST’s Deputy Minister Doan Van Viet highly appreciates the active coordinating role of the ASEAN Secretariat, the host country Indonesia as well as the National Tourism Organisations have made efforts to implement projects, work plans and target programmes, contributing to bringing the tourism industry overcomes difficulties and challenges and achieved good and remarkable results. Many projects have been started and completed in the past, covering all areas such as promotion, human resource training, digital transformation, security and safety or sustainable development…
Leaders attending the 26th Meeting of ASEAN Tourism Ministers (Photo: TITC)
Last year, in addition to effective new initiatives to prepare for the recovery of the tourism industry, countries in the region have also initially organised in-person activities instead of online as two years ago, at the same time, actively expanding cooperation with external partners to attract resources to support the region. MOCST’s Deputy Minister Doan Van Viet hopes that, in 2023, member countries will enhance the promotion of tourism projects as well as further facilitate the goal of connecting ASEAN common destinations, and propose countries to consider removing requirements related to Covid-19 for international visitors to enter and strengthen joint promotion activities, not only to key markets but also within ASEAN.
Vietnamese delegation attending the meeting (Photo: TITC)
Highly praised the project Intra-ASEAN Tourism Recovery Campaign, MOCST’s Deputy Minister Doan Van Viet stated, according to experts and organisations, neighbouring markets will find easier to recover and can become a leverage to attract visitors than distant markets. As one of the first countries to remove all requirements related to Covid-19 upon entry in May 2022, Vietnam has been actively promoting tourism and especially targeting the Intra-ASEAN market.
In 2022, Vietnam welcomed 3.6 million international visitor arrivals, including 920 thousand visitor arrivals from ASEAN, the number of visitors from ASEAN has recovered about 45% compared to the pre-pandemic. MOCST’s Deputy Minister Doan Van Viet hopes that Vietnam will soon welcome ASEAN delegations to attend major tourism events in Vietnam in 2023, such as the VITM International Travel Mart in Ha Noi and ITE-HCMC in Ho Chi Minh City, or a series of events throughout the year such as the Visit Vietnam Year 2023 in Binh Thuan province with the theme "Green tourism comes together", Hue Festival 2023.
Overview of the meeting (Photo: TITC)
As per schedule of the meeting, Member States reviewed and adopted the Chairman's Statement and the Minutes of the 26th ASEAN Tourism Ministers Meeting.
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