Towards a Dynamic Tourism Region

Mr Phuong Huu Viet, Chairman of the Vietnam - Laos - Cambodia Association for Economic Cooperation Development (Vilacaed), said this year’s GMS Development Cooperation Forum, themed "GMS Tourism 2013,” aimed to connect authorities and policymakers with businesses in GMS. This is an opportunity for investors to have more information about trade promotion and seek business partners to tap the region's huge tourism potential. It also serves as a gateway to introduce and promote tourism potential and products of GMS countries and quickly make GMS a rapidly-developing and prosperous part of Southeast Asia. This is also one of 11 priority programmes in the framework of GMS economic cooperation.

 

Mr Tran Phu Cuong, Deputy Director of the International Cooperation Department under the Vietnam National Administration of Tourism (VNAT), said GMS tourism cooperation was initiated in 1994 through the coordination of the Tourism Working Group (TWG). GMS tourism cooperation has attracted many enterprises and promoted dialogues between the State sector and the private sector.

 

The GMS cooperation has produced Tourism Development Strategy at the service of poverty reduction. Accordingly, 29 priority projects have been launched to develop and promote tourism in 13 regions along the Mekong River. Cooperation programmes focus on tourism promotion, marketing, human resource development, heritage conservation, social impact management, and travel facilitation with simplified customs and immigration procedures.

 

Presently, international arrivals to GMS exceed 45 million a year and are expected to surpass 50 million in 2015. GMS tourism generates gross revenue of US$52.4 billion, generates 3.8 million jobs and provides opportunities for poverty alleviation for 1.2 million people. GMS tourism covers Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Thailand, Myanmar and China’s Guangxi and Yunnan provinces.

 

In addition, the forum is an opportunity for participants to discuss such contents as GMS tourism cooperation assessment in the spirit of the GMS Strategic Framework for 2012-2022 phase, discussed and approved by the fourth GMS Summit (GMS-4) in Myanmar and the Joint Statement “Beyond 2012: Towards a New Decade of GMS”; introduce and promote tourism development potentials and investment opportunities of GMS countries; promote tourism, develop tourism human resources, managing social impacts on cultural heritages and natural heritages, facilitate travelling among GMS countries, building and improving tourism infrastructure; exchange solutions to enhance connectivity and cooperation in tourism development investment for enterprises and organise tourism events; and propose governments of GMS countries to build and complete policies on tourism development cooperation among GMS countries.

 

Apart from advantages and potential, Mr Cuong also pointed out challenges in GMS tourism cooperation like underdeveloped and unequal infrastructure conditions; insufficient and weak tourism human resources, and limited number of people with tourism development training. Besides, to have sustainable tourism development, GMS must have more synchronous and more integrated tourism development approaches; balance distribution of tourism development benefits; enhance measures to preserve natural and cultural heritages; protect vulnerable groups from tourism development impacts; better monitor tourism impacts; enable small and medium enterprises to do business tourism; and build small infrastructure beneficial to poor groups.

 

One other important content of the forum is the discussion on plans for simplification of customs and immigration procedures, as well as complete visa exemption. If six GMS countries share one visa, a tourist only needs one visa to go to six GMS countries. Countries participating in the forum include China, Thailand, Myanmar, Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia, and all expect to build and apply the common visa from 2015. Thailand and Cambodia are currently the two first countries to sign an agreement to pilot this model.