DAVAO, Philippines, Jan 13, 2006 (AFP) - Some 2,500 delegates gathered in this southern Philippine city on Friday for a Southeast Asian tourism conference that will be led by tourism ministers, organizers said. Ministers of the member nations of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) will start arriving this weekend for the two-week forum that opens on Monday, said Art Boncato, an official of the forum hosts. ASEAN includes Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam. Delegates from the tourism agencies of Japan, South Korea, China India are also scheduled to meet their ASEAN counterparts at the forum which will include trade exhibits and business meetings. Local officials have assured that security during the forum will be tight despite a series of bombings and mass kidnappings by Muslim extremists linked to the Al-Qaeda and Jemaah Islamiyah networks in the southernmost islands. The tourism industry in Southeast Asia has been buffeted in recent years due to incidents such as bombings, natural disasters and outbreaks of diseases like bird flu. str/mm/cgm/th