ANN/VIENTIANE TIMES – Lao Minister of Information, Culture, and Tourism Suanesavanh Vignaket chaired the 27th meeting of tourism ministers from ASEAN.
The meeting’s focus was on advancing high-quality and responsible tourism in the region, with emphasis on promoting ASEAN as a unified tourist destination.
The ASEAN National Tourism Organisations (NTOS) meeting’s report, presented the day before, emphasised the importance of improving connectivity to link more ASEAN cities and boost common destinations within the region.
The ministers aim to strengthen collaboration to ensure sustainable and responsible tourism practices across ASEAN.
“Some destinations/cities in Asean are lacking a decent air route to connect each other,” read the report presented at the ministerial meeting.
“Thus, strategic efforts to restore and enhance air connectivity shall be implemented to facilitate international and intra-Asean travel by establishing direct flights linking major and lesser-known Asean tourism destinations with primary, secondary and tertiary cities in ASEAN and potential markets.”
In this regard, the Asean tourism sector should strengthen collaboration with transport-related stakeholders, including the government and the private sector, it added.
Suanesavanh told her Asean counterparts that the meeting was a good opportunity for ministers to discuss the challenges, solutions and recommendations spelled out by the report. The report also recommended the need to address the employee shortage in the tourism industry, occurred as a significant number of staff were laid off during the pandemic when the tourism industry was hard hit. “To address this issue, Asean should map out the current demand and supply of tourism professionals to identify the gaps,” the report suggested.
“It added that appropriate training, the latest knowledge, and investment in upgrading the skills of the tourism workforce should be undertaken and provided.”
Senior Asean tourism officials advised their ministers about the need for marketing adaptation in line with current and future trends towards responsible and sustainable tourism.
“Travellers now need to behave (more) responsibly to protect their health, as well as the health of other travellers and the local community,” the report stated.
An increasing number of global travellers have also expressed a preference for more sustainable travel in the future and expect more sustainable travel options from the industry, the report added.
