Ministers from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, meeting in the historic Indonesian city of Yogyakarta on Jan. 24, agreed to start working on an agreement to develop, facilitate and promote tourism in Southeast Asia. Generally unnoticed except by some in the travel trade, this decision arose from a proposal by Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen last November that ASEAN’s leaders conclude a tourism agreement at the summit to be hosted by Cambodia later this year. The agreement would underscore the importance that ASEAN gave to tourism and, as envisioned, would spell out concrete commitments for the encouragement of tourism within and from outside the region.
People may find it strange that ASEAN should be talking tourism at a time when people have developed a fear of flying from the airborne terrorist attacks in the United States and news has spread about the discovery of possible al Qaeda cells in parts of Southeast Asia. In fact, some ASEAN countries have turned to tourism to cushion themselves from past adversity. Thailand and Malaysia, for example, stepped up their expenditures for tourism promotion in response to the 1997-1998 financial crisis despite strains on government budgets.
ASEAN’s tourism authorities have pointed out that the recent arrests in Malaysia, the Philippines and Singapore of men with alleged links to international terrorism, like similar arrests in France, Germany, Spain and other European countries, actually showed the effectiveness of measures being taken nationally and through international cooperation to enhance the security of all, including visitors.
ASEAN as a group is becoming increasingly aware of the importance of tourism to its members’ development. Highly labor-intensive, tourism generates an enormous number of jobs directly or indirectly, from hotel personnel to tour guides to handicraft artists to souvenir hawkers. Tourism has large multiplier effects through the economy, and its benefits extend to far-flung places around the country and not just to the capitals and other centers of economic activity. Income from tourism provides immediate foreign-exchange receipts. Tourism income is also a strong incentive for protecting a nation’s environment and cultural heritage.
Southeast Asia already boasts a number of world-class tourist destinations. The region certainly has what it takes to attract a wide variety of visitors. Most of its beaches, seas and innumerable islands can be enjoyed all year round. It has some of the most diverse ecologies on earth. It has rich and dynamic cultures. Its diving spots are some of the best in the world. There are the corals, exotic birds and animals, caves and mountains. The shopping is great. Everything that tourists want except skiing, although there are a couple of snow-capped mountains.
All the ASEAN countries are generally welcoming to tourists, but they recognize that they have to cooperate more closely to remove many of the restrictions that remain in order to realize more fully tourism’s potential for the region. The continuing restrictions on airline seats are a major constraint. Leading airlines with global connections would bring in the tourists, and they tend to promote their destinations to fill their seats. Some ASEAN countries, however, continue to cling to the old-fashioned notion of a national airline as a mark of sovereignty, like the national currency. That concept is slowly eroding. Belgium has lost Sabena, and Switzerland Swissair. Denmark, Norway and Sweden have not had national airlines for decades, operating a joint airline, SAS, instead. In Southeast Asia, Cambodia has allowed Royal Air Cambodge to die in the competition with foreign airlines for the sake of the people actually or potentially employed in the tourism industry as a whole. Since then, Cambodia has seen a surge in tourism, particularly to the great monuments of its ancient civilization. After all, other sectors of the tourism industry, including ground services for the airlines flying into the country, employ many times more people than the national airline. ASEAN’s leaders realize this. The plan of action that they issued in Hanoi in 1998 calls, albeit somewhat cautiously, for “the development of a Competitive Air Services Policy which may be a gradual step towards an Open Sky Policy in ASEAN.” The problem is that air services agreements are normally negotiated bilaterally, between pairs of governments, and those negotiations are generally tough, considering the importance that most governments attach to their airlines.
Travel has to be made easier from one ASEAN country to another. The first six ASEAN countries – Brunei Darussalam, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand – have long had an arrangement for the visa-free entry of one another’s nationals. The newer members – Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam – have not fully joined that arrangement, but they are gradually loosening their visa rules for other ASEAN nationals; for example, the grant of visas on arrival. For travelers from outside ASEAN, if visas cannot be waived altogether, perhaps visas can be granted upon arrival to visitors coming directly from another ASEAN country.
ASEAN is working on various schemes to make the transport of goods and people, especially on mainland Southeast Asia, easier and hassle-free. Tourism on the magnificent Mekong River, which runs through five of the ten ASEAN members, is being envisioned, with China offering to fund the dredging of parts of the great waterway to make it more navigable. With Japanese financing, ASEAN has done a major study on developing cruise tourism in the region.
Security agencies in ASEAN should be seen to be working closely together to assure visitors that their security is in good hands. ASEAN members ought to step up their cooperation in protecting the environment and conserving the cultural heritage. The environment and culture, after all, are the goose that lays the golden tourism egg. They must not be damaged.
Tourism is mostly about good service. ASEAN is embarking on a new round of negotiations for the liberalization of trade in tourism services within the region. The important thing is to give the best service possible to the visitor; it should not matter much which ASEAN national provides that service. Many more local people would benefit from the patronage of satisfied travelers.
Boosting tourism in ASEAN would be good not only for the region but for many outside it – the global airlines, the aircraft manufacturing industry, catering and other airline services, airports, the cruise industry, travel agencies, international hotel chains, travel consultancies, food and beverage suppliers to upscale hotels and restaurants, and so on.
This year will see whether ASEAN policy-makers in the many sectors involved in tourism will live up to their leaders’ vision.
Rodolfo C. Severino is ASEAN Secretary-General.