MOCST’s Minister Nguyen Van Hung speaking at the Meeting (Photo: TITC)

The Meeting was chaired by H.E. Ms. Suanesavanh Vignaket, Minister of the Ministry of Information, Culture and Tourism of Lao PDR. The Meeting discussed the implementation of activities in the ASEAN Tourism Strategy 2016-2025 and other important priorities for the period 2023-2024 to further support the rapid recovery of the tourism industry. In line with the theme “Quality and Responsible Tourism – Sustaining ASEAN Future”, the Meeting highlighted the importance of promoting closer cooperation among ASEAN Member States in all relevant areas to ensure the sustainability and resilience of ASEAN tourism.

At the Meeting, Ministers discussed and gave directions to continue promoting ASEAN tourism cooperation. MOCST’s Minister Nguyen Van Hung stated, at the United Nations Council meeting in October 2023, government leaders affirmed that ASEAN is leading the implementation of the United Nations’ goals as well as making important contributions to peace and regional and world economic development. Minister Nguyen Van Hung emphasised that Laos’ initiative is consistent with the general trend of tourism development, contributing to promoting intra-bloc tourism and strengthening connections between member countries.

Promoting ASEAN tourism cooperation (Photo: TITC)

Responding to the presentation of Laos – Chair of the ASEAN National Tourism Organisations, it can be seen that tourism results in 2023 in the ASEAN region are improving, thanks to the positive recovery from key Northeast Asian markets as well as from intra-regional countries.

However, member countries still need to continue their efforts and strengthen cooperation to promote ASEAN tourism to catch up with the pace of other regions in the world in the context that some places have recovered and even exceeded the level before the Covid-19 pandemic.

Also following the general development trend of the region, in 2023 Vietnam welcomed 12.6 million international visitor arrivals, reaching 70% compared to 2019, serving 108 million domestic visitor trips, an increase of 27% compared to 2019. In 2019, total tourist receipts reached about 28 billion US dollars. The ASEAN region is one of Vietnam’s fastest-recovering source markets, especially the number of visitors from Laos, Cambodia and Singapore to Vietnam in 2023 has exceeded pre-pandemic levels. ​It can be affirmed that the ASEAN intra-regional market is one of the driving forces promoting the strong recovery of Vietnam’s tourism industry.

Besides, also in 2023, Vietnam tourism was honoured with prestigious regional and international awards from WTA, especially for the 4^th consecutive year, Vietnam won the “World’s Leading Heritage Destination”.

Overview of the Meeting (Photo: TITC)

The Minister said that last December 2023, Vietnam organised a Workshop on ASEAN Festival Tourism with the participation and support of ASEAN countries. Many opinions point out that ASEAN has a long-standing culture, diverse and colourful festivals, yet it has not been developed effectively to highlight this strength. In the coming time, countries can coordinate to promote festival tourism products with more focus, each year focusing on introducing and organising activities to celebrate ASEAN festivals in a member country in a rotating form.

For ASEAN tourism to develop more sustainably, Minister Nguyen Van Hung said that countries need to strengthen the construction of unique tourism products. Each country builds a typical tourism product, connecting according to the orientation: 1 route 10 countries. At the same time, member countries also need to develop plans to reduce difficulties and further facilitate tourism, especially air and cruise traffic, thereby increasing the attractiveness of ASEAN tourism, developing sustainably, and becoming a green destination that attracts tourists around the world.

MOCST’s Minister Nguyen Van Hung leads the Vietnamese delegation to attend the 27th Meeting of ASEAN Tourism Ministers (M-ATM) (Photo: TITC)

In the framework of the Meeting, consultation activities also took place with international organisations, organisations related to ASEAN and external organisations such as: Economic Research Institute for ASEAN and East Asia (ERIA), ASEAN Tourism Association (ASEANTA), US-ASEAN Business Council (US-ABC), World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO), World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC), Pacific Asia Travel Association (PATA),... MOCST’s Minister Nguyen Van Hung highly appreciates the support, close and effective coordination of international organisations and dialogue partners of ASEAN in recent times have contributed to the effective recovery and sustainable and inclusive tourism development of the region.

Adding information about Vietnam tourism, Minister Nguyen Van Hung said that Vietnam always tries to innovate tourism products to suit all tourists' demands. Currently, one of the tourism products that Vietnam focuses on developing is agricultural and rural tourism. Vietnam is also honoured to have a village (Tan Hoa Village, Quang Binh Province) recognized as the Best Tourism Village 2023 by the World Tourism Organisation. This is an effective initiative to promote the development of rural tourism and sustainable tourism, a trend of the world after the pandemic and also strength of Vietnam tourism.

Vietnam's tourism development perspective always considers tourism as a key economic sector. Vietnam has recently attracted many strategic investors, contributing to the positive development of the tourism industry. Therefore, Vietnam hopes that international organisations will continue to pay attention, support, and cooperate closely with Vietnam tourism, and consider hosting a number of large-scale conferences, activities, events, and tourism projects in Vietnam in the coming years to support ASEAN tourism in general and Vietnam in particular, according to demand and in accordance with the strengths and capabilities of each destination.

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